/2_  .//.  f^i 

LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


PRESENTED    BY  rt^  T.  cMlAC^ip  T?  .  rTlOn  ^O 


'  f  vixx«>T<^  -i\suiue^ 


^^^^^  V  r    f^9  y- 


THE   LAW    OF    LIBERTY 

AND   OTHER   DISCOURSES. 


THE   LAW  OF  LIBERTY 


AND    OTHER  DISCOURSES. 


DEC  11  1910 


JAMES  MORRIS  WHITON,  Ph.D. 


(jlcto  TJorft : 
THOMAS  WHITTAKER,  2  and  3  BIBLE   HOUSE. 


[890. 


THE     MANY     FRIENDS, 

IN  ENGLISH   HOMES  AND    CONGREGATIONS, 

WHOSE  ESTEEM  I  CHERISH, 

WHOSE  HOSPITALITY  I  HAVE  RECEIVED, 

WHOSE  WORSHIP  I  HAVE  SHARED, 

iljis  Series  of  riscmirecs 

IS  GRATEFULLY  INSCRIBED. 


AUTHOR'S   NOTE. 


This  volume  is  a  memorial  of  a  delightful 
sojom^n  in  England  dm-ing  a  part  of  the 
summer  of  1888,  upon  the  invitation  of  the 
Kev.  Joseph  Halsey,  of  Anerley,  to  take  his 
pulpit  in  his  vacation.  Among  my  cherished 
remembrances  of  Anerley  there  is  one  which 
seems  deserving  of  public  mention  —  tJae 
greater  advance  made  there  than  elsewhere 
toward  the  ideal  of  a  truly  congregational 
worship,  in  a  common  prayer  as  well  as 
common  praise.  Some  twenty  years  ago,  in 
a  discussion  of  this  subject  in  America,  the 
venerable  Dr.  Woolsey,  President  of  Yale 
College,  advocated  a  combination  of  free 
prayer  with  fixed  forms  of  prayer,  as  uniting 
the  advantages  claimed  by  the  advocates  of 
each.  It  was  a  pleasing  surprise  to  me  to 
find    this    so    well    realised    at    Anerley ;    for 


Vlll  AUTHOR  S   NOTE. 

instance,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  service, 
the  audible  participation  of  the  people  in  the 
General  Confession  and  the  General  Thanks- 
giving, while,  further  on,  the  free  prayer 
retained  its  traditional  place.  I  cannot  but 
think  this  a  real  improvement  deserving  of 
general  adoption. 

In  my  inability  to  revise  the  print  of  the 
latter  part  of  the  volume  before  leaving 
England,  I  am  indebted  for  that  service  to  a 
kind  and  skilful  friend,  v^ho  prefers  to  be 
unnamed. 

J.  M.  W. 

Aneelet,  London,  S.E., 
September  3,  1888. 


DISCOURSES. 


I.    The  Law  of  Liberty 


II. 
III. 
IV. 

V. 
VI. 


THE 


Solomon  :  An  Old  Story  with  a  New  Face 
Helping  God    .... 
Spiritual  Barbarism 
The  Mystery  of  Evil     . 
The  Assurance  of  Immortality 
VII.    The  Transfiguration  :   A  Glimpse    of 
Unseen  World  . 
VIII.    Is  Deception  ever  a  Duty  ?  . 
IX.    The  Trinity      .... 
X.    Balaam  :  The  Moral  Cross-Eye 
XI.    The  Advent  of  the  Christ  . 
XII.    The  World's  Balance-Wheel 


PAGE 

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23 
4.5 
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103 

125 
145 
169 
191 
213 
235 


I. 

THE    LAW    OF    LIBERTY 


I. 

THE    LAW    OF   LIBERTY. 

"  Unto  me,  who  am  less  than  the  least  of  all  saints,  was  this 
grace  given,  to  preach  unto  the  Gentiles  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ." — Ephesians  iii.  S. 

Theee  are  two  points  of  view  from  which 
we  may  regard  whatever  we  call  our  duties. 
The  first  is  that  of  obhgation  and  constraint, 
when  we  do  not  feel  attracted,  but  rather 
compelled.  We  say  :  "  I  ought,"  "  I  have  got 
to  do  it."  We  take  hold,  but  it  seems  hard  and 
repelling,  only  toilsome  work.  It  is  well  for 
us  if  we  have  enough  of  conscience  to  respond 
to  this  whip  and  spur.  But  there  is  something 
better  for  us,  a  higher  point  of  view.  This  is 
in  desire  for  the  duty,  as  for  a  welcome  oppor- 
tunity, when  an  inviting  prospect  opens.  Then 
interest  wakens  and  grows  ;  our  minds  are 
■engaged ;  we  work  with  a  will,  spontaneously, 

Preached  in  Anerlet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Morning,  August  5,  1888. 


4  THE   LAW  OF  LIBERTY.  [l. 

freely,  heartily,  happily.  Not  to  work  would 
be  a  deprivation,  a  disappointment.  Such 
work  is  that  free  and  joyous  exercise  of  our 
faculties  which  we  appropriately  characterise 
as  play. 

Now  our  moral  progress  does  not  extend 
beyond  the  childish  stage,  till  we  have  ad- 
vanced from  the  first  to  the  second  of  these 
different  points  of  view,  in  our  estimate  of 
the  various  things  which  present  themselves 
originally  as  duties.  Our  moral  development 
is  carried  no  farther  than  we  have  learned  to 
look  on  all  duties  with  the  desire  of  those  that 
long  to  do  them  rather  than  with  the  con- 
straint of  those  that  are  enjoined  to  do  them. 
In  doing  anything  that  is  in  itself  good,  our 
moral  benefit  is  comparatively  small,  until  the 
sense  of  duty,  which  pushes  us  up  to  it, 
changes  into  a  love  for  the  good  thing,  which 
attracts  us  to  it.  Doing  right  from  a  mere 
sense  of  duty  is  the  mark  of  a  lower  rank,  as 
God's  servants.  Doing  right  from  the  love  of 
it  is  the  mark  of  the  higher  rank,  as  God's 
children. 

Jesus  tells  us,  "  Whe7i  ye  have  done  all 
things  that  ye  are  commanded,  say,  '  We  are 
unjprofitahle  servants ;  we  have  done  that  which 


I.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  6 

loas  our  duty  to  do.' "  This  sounds  dis- 
couraging enough.  Perhaps  it  was  so  in- 
tended— to  drive  us  off  from  the  lower  level  of 
unsatisfying  task-work  to  the  higher  level  of 
filial  service,  in  a  fellowship  whose  inspiration 
of  sympathy  and  affection  is  the  very  light  of 
life.  So  Jesus  seems  to  intimate,  when  He 
says  to  the  disciples,  "  I  have  not  called  you 
servants,  but  I  have  called  you  friends." 

Now,  our  moral  education  begins  under  the 
lower  set  of  motives — the  various  motives  of  a 
law  that  is  external  to  ourselves,  a  law  which 
comes  down  upon  us  from  above,  a  law  which 
says,  "  Thou  shalt,"  and  "  Thou  shall  not,"  a 
law  that  we  acknowledge  by  confessing,  "  I 
ought,"  "  I  have  to."  But  our  moral  education 
is  but  half  wrought,  if  we  are  not  brought  out 
from  these  rudimentary  lessons  of  obligatory 
ordinances  into  the  free  play  of  the  higher  set 
of  motives,  motives  from  within  ourselves, 
motives  of  a  law  that  has  been  transcribed 
from  tables  of  stone  upon  the  living  tablet  of  the 
heart,  a  law  whose  mandate  is  one  with  our  own 
desire.  This  is  what  the  Apostle  James  calls 
"  the  laiD  of  liberty.''  Its  burden  is  one  of 
promise  and  of  cheer,  in  a  heavenly  vision 
that  ail  good  things  are  possible  to  us.     This 


6  THE    LAW   OP   LIBERTY.  [l. 

law  of  liberty  we  honour  in  only  longing  for 
more  strength  and  studying  for  more  means  to 
make  that  which  is  possible  actual. 

In  fewer  words,  what  has  been  said 
amounts  to  this  :  The  problem  of  moral 
progress  is  to  develop  obligations  into  desires, 
to  transfigure  stern-visaged  duties  into  de- 
lightful privileges,  to  raise  our  view  of  all 
the  good  work  within  our  power  from  the 
aspect  of  laborious  toil  to  that  of  the  spon- 
taneous and  gratifying  exercise  which  has  the 
attractiveness  of  play.  "  The  entire  object  of 
true  education,"  says  Ruskin,  "is  to  make 
people  not  merely  do  the  right  things,  but 
enjoy  the  right  things." 

The  result  of  such  an  education  is  before 
us  in  the  text.  Paul  tells  us  how  he  regarded 
the  occupation  of  his  life.  Wretched  as  he 
might  be  deemed  by  some,  he  counted  himself 
the  happiest  of  men.  In  the  twenty  years  that 
he  had  spent  as  Christ's  missionary,  he  had 
once  been  stoned  till  nearly  dead,  five  times 
publicly  scourged,  three  times  shipwrecked, 
hunted  from  city  to  city,  living  from  hand 
to  mouth  on  precarious  work  and  precarious 
charity,  despised  by  the  majority  of  his 
countrymen,    hated    and    persecuted    beyond 


I.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  7 

most  men  of  his  time.  But  all  this  casts  no 
shade  over  his  spirit,  no  dimness  over  the 
glory  of  the  life  which  he  loves.  At  the 
moment  of  his  writing  he  is  a  prisoner  in 
Eome ;  one  arm  is  fettered  to  the  arm  of  the 
soldier  who  is  charged  with  his  custody.  But 
with  his  one  free  arm  he  writes  to  his  far-off 
church  at  Ephesus  this  confession  of  his  glad 
and  grateful  soul:  "  Unto  me  was  this  grace 
given,  to  preach  unto  the  Gentiles  the  unsearch- 
able riches  of  Christ."  Imprisonment,  martyr- 
dom itself,  with  all  the  past  years  of  hunger, 
poverty,  footsore  travel,  obloquy,  outrage,  all 
melted,  in  the  Divine  light  into  which  he  had 
risen,  into  transient  annoyances  that  were 
merely  incidental  to  the  doing  of  a  work  that 
he  embraced  with  passionate  desire,  the  op- 
portunity of  which — drawbacks  and  all — he 
rejoiced  in  as  a  boon  from  the  grace  of  God. 

Now,  it  would  be  very  foolish  to  drop  such 
a  case  as  this  with  a  mere  shrug  of  wonder  as 
too  romantic  to  be  of  use  to  us.  It  is  a  grand 
case  of  a  man  who  proved  equal  to  a  great 
opportunity.  The  same  spirit  that  made  him 
equal  makes  men  in  smaller  cases  equal  to 
smaller  opportunities  of  the  same  kind.  The 
same   steam  that  drives  the  ocean  leviathan 


8  THE    LAW    OF   LIBERTY.  [l. 

through  the  vortex  of  Atlantic  cyclones  drives 
the  pleasure  yacht  that  plies  on  summer  even- 
ings up  and  down  the  river.  It  would  be  very 
foolish,  therefore,  to  ignore  the  lesson  which 
Paul's  experience  gives  us  by  saying,  Paul  was 
inspired,  he  had  higher  powers,  lived  on  higher 
levels  than  we  can.  Doubtless  Paul  was  in- 
spired. That  wonderful  confession  of  his  in 
our  text  proves  it.  No  man,  after  being  for 
twenty  years  made  a  door-mat  and  foot- 
scraper  for  the  world,  could  say,  "  Unto  me 
was  this  grace  given,'"  through  all  this  to 
X^reach  the  Gospel  to  heathen,  except  he  were 
an  inspired  man. 

But  what  inspired  him  ?  Just  that  which 
may  inspire  us  also  to  rise  to  our  opportunity, 
as  he  rose  to  his.  I  say  no  more  than  God's 
sober  truth,  when  I  say  that  we,  in  our  place, 
may  have  the  same  inspiration  that  Paul  had 
ill  his  place.  Paul's  inspiration  was  the 
ardour  of  his  personal  devotion  to  Jesus  the 
Son  of  God.  "  For  me  to  live  is  Christ,'"  said 
he.  Just  as  other  men  are  full  of  one  thought 
— how  they  shall  make  a  fortune,  how  they 
shall  carry  an  election,  how  they  shall  discover 
some  secret  of  Nature  or  perfect  some  inven- 
tion of   art,  he  was  full  of  the  one   thought, 


I,]  THE    LAW    OF    LIBEKTY.  9 

liow  to  be  like  Christ,  how  to  build  the  church 
of  Christ,  how  to  fill  the  world  with  the  grace 
and  truth  of  Christ.  This  was  the  inspiration 
that  transformed  his  toilsome  work  into  a 
delightful  play  of  well-disciplined  and  trium- 
phant power. 

The  difference  between  Paul  and  the  man 
of  least  capacity  is  in  this  respect  like  the 
difference  between  a  gallon  measure  and  a  gill 
measure.  Each  can  be  full  of  that  inspira- 
tion which  flows  from  a  divine  motive,  and 
from  a  noble  object  which  is  embraced  with  a 
true  appreciation  and  a  hearty  desire. 

One  day  in  every  year,  called  Pentecost  or 
Whit-Sunday,  is  commemorated  as  the  day 
when  the  Spirit  of  God  rose  to  full  tide  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Apostles  and  their  little  company 
in  that  upper  room  at  Jerusalem.  The  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  that  came  upon  them 
then  was  in  the  flooding  of  their  souls  with  a 
mighty  desire  to  fulfil  their  Master's  bidding, 
to  bear  witness  of  Him  to  the  world.  In  the 
ardour  of  that  desire,  fears  vanished  and  diffi- 
culties melted.  What  had  been  set  before 
them  as  a  duty  they  embraced  with  a  sacred 
passion.  Constrained,  indeed,  they  were,  yet 
no   longer    by    a    mere    commandment,    but 


10  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  [l. 

because,  as  they  said  with  Paul,  "  The  love  of 
Christ  constraineth  us." 

The  great  fact  which  this  historic  experience 
records — the  baptism  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
with  the  Spirit  of  Christ — is  appropriate  not 
merely  for  an  annual  commemoration,  but  for 
a  daily  remembrance.  Nor  is  it  appropriate 
merely  for  apostles,  missionaries,  and  leaders 
in  the  church.  It  is  even  more  urgently 
necessary  for  those  to  think  upon,  who,  in  the 
round  of  common  life,  are  conscious  of  no 
great  opportunities — those  who  in  the  toil  and 
moil  of  daily  labours  are  too  often  unaware 
how  precious  an  experience  is  lost  to  them  for 
lack  of  that  Spirit  who  glorifies  the  humblest 
life  which  He  touches  with  His  sacred  tongue 
of  fire. 

For  this  over-busy,  care- driven,  work- 
haunted  life  which  most  of  us  live  there  is, 
indeed,  no  subject  of  higlier  practical  im- 
portance than  that  with  which  the  historic 
lesson  of  the  day  of  Pentecost  has  made  one 
day  a  lesson  to  all  days. 

The  reflective  moments  of  a  thoughtful 
mind, intent  more  on  substantial  than  on  showy 
things,  are  often  haunted  and  sometimes  op- 
pressed by  the  question,  How  to  redeem  our 


I.  THE    LAW   OF   LIBEETY.  11 

daily  life  Irom  waste  ?  How  to  lift  our  lives 
above  a  dwarfing  and  deadening  routine  of 
mere  mill-work  ?  How  to  dignify  the  neces- 
sary commonplace  of  house  and  street  and 
shop  with  that  which  is  not  commonplace, 
with  sympathies  and  interests  and  influences 
that  are  wide  as  the  world,  high  as  heaven,  far- 
reaching  as  eternity  ?  How  to  exchange  the 
life  of  formalism,  that  is  not  worth  living,  for 
the  precious  life  of  faith,  and  make  our  life 
count  all  that  it  can  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Let  me  urge  you,  my  friends,  to  put  these 
questions  to  yourselves,  for  the  question  is  the 
first  step  toward  a  revelation  of  the  way  and 
the  power. 

To  illustrate  our  need  of  putting  such  ques- 
tions, there  are  stated  times  when  we  come 
here  to  the  Lord's  Table.  Let  us  at  such 
times  ask.  Why  do  I  come  to  the  Lord's 
Table?  Suppose  that  it  were  omitted  from 
our  list  of  customary  observances,  should  1  feel 
anything  like  hunger  for  it  ?  Is  it  only  one  of 
our  observances,  that  must  be  honoured  at  the 
set  time,  because  the  time  has  come,  because 
it  is  expected  of  us,  because  it  would  be  very 
improper  to  omit  it  ?  If  so,  we  are  simply 
maintaining    a    Christian    form    on   the    old 


12  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  [l. 

heathen  level  of  an  obligatory  ritual.  That  is 
"  work-religion,"  nothing  but  incense-burning 
before  a  Deity  who  cares  nothing  for  a  fragrant 
smell.  To  imagine  God  to  be  pleased  or  our- 
selves bettered  by  keeping  up  a  sacrament  as  a 
mere  obligatory  ritual,  or  to  come  to  it  simply 
as  such,  is  utter  superstition,  which  leaves  us 
living  on  the  low  level  where  it  found  us.  It  is 
hardly  any  better  than  keeping  a  sick  man's 
pulse  going  and  breath  going  by  spoonfuls  of 
beef-tea,  instead  of  keeping  vigorous  life  at  full 
tide  by  going  to  the  family  table  with  a  healthy 
appetite.  Unless  we  come  to  the  Lord's  Table 
with  a  craving  for  what  God  offers  there,  we 
are  far  from  being  in  spiritual  health.  Indeed, 
it  is  too  true,  that  just  as  the  sick  man  kept 
alive  on  beef-tea  has  only  life  enough  in  him 
to  be  miserable,  so  there  are  many  who  have 
only  enough  religion  in  them  to  be  periodically 
uncomfortable. 

And  so,  when  any  of  my  friends  says  to  me, 
I  do  not  regard  it  as  obligatory  to  come  to  the 
Lord's  Table,  I  answer.  There  is  higher 
ground  for  you  to  take.  Whether  or  no  it  be 
obligatory  I  do  not  care  to  argue.  But  it  is 
beyond  all  question  desirable.  Your  great 
need  is  to  be  thoroughly  and  well  alive — "  alive 


I.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  13 

to  God."  There  is  food  there  that  you  need. 
There  are  quickening  convictions  of  the  love  of 
God,  the  grace  of  Christ,  the  assurance  of  hfe 
eternal  for  us  and  ours,  which  are  obtained  there 
as  nowhere  else.  What !  are  we  not  content  till 
we  have  been  ordered  and  commanded  to  seek 
such  things  ?  The  precious  reality  is  no  ritual 
enjoined  by  authority,  but  the  dear  privilege 
of  a  loving  heart  ;  not  a  ceremony  or  a  pro- 
priety, but  an  inspiration ;  not  a  form,  but  a 
power,  that  is  found  by  those  who  seek  it,  to 
make  our  common  life  stronger,  richer,  purer  ; 
— the  power  of  a  truer  fellowship  with 
Christ,  the  power  of  a  steadier  faith  in  God, 
the  power  of  a  closer  gi-asp  of  the  sacred 
realities  of  duty,  the  sacred  possibilities  of 
destiny. 

Let  me  take  one  more  illustration  from  the 
fact  that  we  acknowledge  it  to  be  the  com- 
mandment of  Christ  to  make  offerings  for  the 
spread  of  Christianity  in  the  moral  and 
religious  deserts  which  still  deform  our  own 
and  other  lands.  In  view  of  that  admitted 
fact,  let  each  of  us  ask  himself — Why  is  it  that 
I  ever  give  for  that  purpose  ?  Is  it  because  I 
am  required  and  expected  to,  or  because  I 
desire  to  ?     If  the  plate  never  came  to  me  for 


14  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  [l. 

my  offering,  should  I  care  to  bring  my  offering 
to  the  plate?  And  yet  that  offering  means 
everything  that  is  good  for  multitudes  of  fellow- 
creatures  who  have  very  little  that  is  good. 
It  means  books  and  schools  for  the  ignorant, 
clothes  and  ploughs  for  the  savage,  decent 
dwellings  for  the  brutish.  It  means  Christian 
homes  in  place  of  harems ;  the  honour  of 
woman  for  her  degradation  ;  Christian  physi- 
cians for  unwholesome  lives;  Christian  teachers 
for  superstitious  minds.  It  means  the  uplift- 
ing of  whole  nations  and  dark  continents  into 
intelligence  and  civihsation,  through  the  know- 
ledge of  God  in  Christ  and  the  hope  of  the 
eternal  life.  That  is  what  that  offering  for 
Christian  missions  means.  And  it  is  a  blessed 
thing  that  the  opportunity  of  it  comes,  a 
more  blessed  thing  to  bid  it  come,  as  a  means 
by  which  we  can  hold  to  our  hearts  the 
dearest  interests  of  humanity,  and  can  feel 
our  hearts  expand  in  the  generous  embrace 
of  it  as  in  the  embrace  of  Christ ;  a  blessed 
thing  to  grasp  it  as  the  coveted  lever  by 
which  we  can  make  the  pressure  of  our  hand 
felt  as  a  power  for  God  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth. 

And  so,  when  any  of  my  friends  says  to  me. 


I.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY,  15 

I  feel  no  obligation  to  give  for  missions  to  the 
heathen,  I  answer,  There  is  higher  ground  for 
you  to  take.  Whether  or  no  it  he  obligatory  I 
do  not  care  to  argue.  But  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  is  at  least  desirable  for  you  to  live 
a  larger  life  and  in  a  larger  world  than  you  do  ; 
and  the  plate  comes  to  make  the  world  larger 
to  you,  and  make  your  soul  enlarge  with 
wider  sympathies  both  with  the  world  that 
needs  redemption  and  with  the  world's  Divine 
Kedeemer.  If  it  be  true  that  many  men  have 
very  small  and  narrow  minds,  it  is  because 
they  are  exclusively  occupied  in  daily  struggles 
for  very  small  things.  The  enlargement  of 
mind  which  comes,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
reminds  us,  from  deaHug  with  great  affairs,  is 
within  the  reach  of  every  man  who  will  em- 
brace the  sublime  interest  and  take  the  divine 
part  that  Jesus  calls  him  to,  in  consecrating 
his  life  to  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

The  more  investments  we  make  in  things 
that  enrich  mankind,  the  richer  we.  The 
more  points  of  hel^^ful  contact  and  influence 
we  make  between  our  life  and  the  life  that 
struggles  to  form  itself  anew  in  any  region  of 
moral  ruin  and  human  decay,  the  wider  is  the 


16  THE    LAW    OF    LIBEETY.  [l. 

horizon  of  our  ordinary  thought,  the  grander 
the  movement  of  our  daily  endeavour,  the 
nearer  we  are  to  Him  who  is  impelhng  and 
shaping  all,  the  more  joy  to  us  that  we  were 
ever  born,  because  born  to  such  opportunities 
in  the  kingdom  of  God, 

Follow  now,  my  friends,  as  you  can,  many 
a  similar  line  of  thought  in  regard  to  many  a 
worthy  thing  that  claims  our  co-operation  as 
members  of  the  community,  or  as  members  of 
the  church.  Learn  thus  to  interrogate  your- 
selves, for  the  sake  of  your  own  moral  develop- 
ment, as  to  the  motives  that  lead  you  to  take 
hold  of  the  good  things  you  are  asked  to  do. 
It  is  better  to  do  good  under  the  pressure  of 
obligation  than  not  to  do  it  at  all.  But  to  do 
good  because  of  a  stern  voice  which  says, 
"  Thou  shalt,"  is  not  enough  for  us.  No  man 
can  be  better  than  his  motive  is.  Hence  the 
highest  motives  are  essential  to  the  highest 
goodness.  The  good  which  we  receive  in 
doing  cannot  be  expected  to  be  larger  than 
the  good  which  we  desire  to  do.  And  there- 
fore the  supreme  importance  to  our  real 
growth  in  real  goodness — as  distinct  from 
mere  activity  in  external  forms  of  goodness — 
that  we  look  below  the  surface  of  things,  till 


I.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  17 

we  see  and  desire  somewhat  of  the  real  good 
that  lies  wrapped  for  us  in  every  good  deed 
which  waits  to  be  done. 

Here  comes  up  the  practical  question  sug- 
gested by  Paul's  great  confession  that  it  was 
"  grace  "  to  him  to  have  the  opportunity  of 
preaching  Christ  to  the  heathen  at  such 
tremendous  costs.  How  did  he  discover  that  ? 
What  shall  reveal  to  us  the  real  desirableness 
of  any  good  thing  that  is  going  to  cost  us  so 
much  toil  or  expense  ?  Many,  no  doubt,  look 
on  such  a  grand  life  as  Paul's  with  no  kindling 
of  desire  to  achieve  what  he  achieved  at  such 
a  price.  They  look  on  the  life  of  a  missionary 
on  the  frontier  of  civilisation,  or  on  the 
activity  of  the  Christian  lady  who  spends  her 
time  in  visiting  the  homes  of  the  city  poor, 
as  certain  Hindu  gentlemen  looked  on  a 
European  ball.  When  they  saw  ladies  and 
gentlemen  dancing  hour  after  hour,  they  could 
not  appreciate  the  pleasure  of  such  exercise. 
It  seemed  to  them  like  work.  They  said, 
"  How  tiresome  it  must  be.  In  our  country 
we  do  better.  We  hire  people  to  dance 
before  us,  and  we  have  nothing  to  do  but 
enjoy  the  spectacle."  That  is  very  like  the 
way  in  which  some  people  hire   the  minister 


18  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  [l. 

or  the  missionary.  "  Save  us  the  trouble," 
they  say,  "  and  here's  your  money." 

The  Europeans  pitied  the  Hindus  for  such 
an  opinion,  though  in  candour  I  must  say  I 
think  the  Hindu  in  that  matter  as  wise  as  the 
European.  But,  my  friends,  we  need  to  pity 
•ourselves,  whenever  we  find  ourselves  in- 
capable of  appreciating  or  sharing  the  enthu- 
siasm, the  inspiration,  that  flows  into  a  soul 
from  a  divine  object.  What  is  it  to  be  set 
face  to  face  with  a  divine  object,  with  Jesus 
Christ,  and  feel  no  enthusiasm  responding 
within  us  ?  It  is  to  discover  that  we  are 
blind,  paralysed,  spiritually  dead. 

Think  now  of  that  poor  negro  woman  in 
Connecticut,  who  bequeathed  the  savings  of  a 
life  spent  at  the  wash-tub  to  the  Yale  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  to  be  a  fund  for  the  education 
of  indigent  men  of  her  own  race  to  preach  the 
Gospel  of  Christ.  She  lived  by  her  wash-tub, 
but  she  didn't  live  in  it ;  she  lived  above  it. 
And  just  that  is  the  privilege,  the  dignity, 
open  to  our  common  life,  to  the  multitude  of 
working  lives,  to  live  in  a  life  that  is  wider, 
higher,  grander  than  the  work  we  live  by. 
Her  outward  life  was  common  and  low.  But 
her  inner  life  was  dignified  by  an  interest  that 


I.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  19 

made  the  struggle  of  her  aspiring  race  her 
struggle,  their  achievements  her  achievements, 
the  purpose  of  God  for  their  elevation  her 
purpose,  the  glory  of  the  world's  Kedeemer  a 
glory  in  which  the  earnings  of  her  humble 
labour  procured  her  lofty  soul  a  share.  Poor 
in  spirit  must  we  confess  ourselves,  if  we  can 
see  nothing  to  emulate  in  such  an  example,  or 
if  we  care  not  to  infuse  into  the  labour  of  our 
bread-winning  such  a  spirit  as  she  infused  into 
hers. 

Here,  then,  we  have  found,  on  one  of  the 
humblest  levels  of  the  modern  world,  a  life  of 
the  commonest  drudgery  filled  with  dignity 
and  power  by  the  same  divine  object  that 
inspired  Paul's  life  of  tribulation  with  thanks- 
giving for  his  opportunity  from  the  grace  of 
God.  The  gill  measure,  the  gallon  measure — 
the  laundress,  the  Apostle — are  both  full  of  the 
same  inspiration.  And  what  is  it  that  fills 
them  ?  What  is  it  that  reveals  to  them  that 
it  is  "  grace,''  a  boon,  a  privilege,  to  embrace 
the  Christian  opportunity  with  all  its  costs  ? 
The  Apostle  answers,  "  The  unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ "  ;  His  glorious  power  over  men  as 
the  great  Lover  of  men  ;  the  glory  of  partner- 
ship vdth  Him  in  the    work   of    the   world's 


20  THE   LAW   OF  LIBERTY.  [l. 

redemption  ;  the  rich  joy  of  joining  heart  with 
Him,  and  hands  with  Him,  of  sharing  costs 
with  Him  and  income  with  Him  in  the  develop- 
ing of  the  grace  and  glory  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  ;  the  opportunity  of  investing  our 
pittance  along  with  that  vast  investment 
which  our  Redeemer  made  in  the  Bank  of 
God,  when  He  gave  Himself  for  the  world ;  the 
coming  joy  of  thinking,  when  at  last  we  see 
the  world  made  new,  that  our  hands  and  our 
hearts  have  helped  the  Son  of  God  to  make  it 
new. 

"  The  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ."  In 
these  words,  my  friends,  is  the  hiding  of  that 
power,  that  inspiration,  by  which  we  are  to 
solve  the  problem  of  our  moral  progress  from 
the  childish  to  the  adult  stage — the  power 
which  transforms  duties  into  privileges,  the 
inspiration  which  exalts  obligations  into 
desires.  Divine  love,  embracing  us  that  we 
may  return  its  embrace,  here  brings  us  to  an 
open  door  out  from  bondage  under  the  shalt 
and  the  shalt  not  of  our  baby-schoolmg  to 
good.  The  Spirit  ever  calls  us  to  its  Pente- 
costal revelation  of  a  blessed  freedom  in  doing 
good  through  the  higher  motives  of  the 
Christian  "  laio  of  liberty.'"      Untraceable  by 


1.]  THE    LAW   OF   LIBERTY.  21 

US,  in  the  widening  stream  of  good  endeavour, 
are  "  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ,''  in 
their  onward  flow  through  the  ages  of  grace 
and  glory.  Unfathomable  are  the  resources 
of  God  to  enrich  all  those  who  strive  to  think 
and  work  with  Him.  Let  none  of  us  despise 
his  birthright  in  these  "unsearchable  richest 
Let  not  our  daily  life  grow  mean  and  poor,  by 
dechning  whatever  sacrifice  it  costs  to  share 
in  these  riches,  and  to  make  others  sharers 
with  us  and  with  God. 

"  Make  use  of  me,  my  God, 
Let  me  not  be  forgot ; 
A  broken  vessel  cast  aside. 
One  whom  Thou  needest  not.' 


II. 


SOLOMON:    AN   OLD    STOBY    WITH  A 
NEW  FACE. 


11. 


SOLOMON:    AN   OLD    STOBY    WITH   A 
NEW   FACE. 

"  Then  did  Solomon  build  an  high  place  for  Chemosh,  the 
abomination  of  Moah,  in  the  mount  that  is  before  Jerusalem, 
and  for  Molech,  the  abomination  of  the  children  of  Ammon. 
And  so  did  he  for  all  his  strange  wives,  which  burnt  incense  and 
sacrificed  unto  their  gods.  And  the  Lord  was  angry  with 
Solomon,  because  his  heart  ivas  turned  away  from  the  Lokd, 
the  God  of  Israel,  which  had  appeared  unto  him  twice,  and 
had  commanded  him  concerning  this  thing,  that  he  should  not 
go  after  other  gods  :  but  he  Jcept  not  that  which  the  Lord  com,- 
manded." — 1  Kings  xi.  7—10. 

Solomon  is  here  recorded  as  an  apostate, 
and  the  man  of  highest  wisdom  is  charged 
with  supreme  folly.  In  this  we  shall  jSnd  a 
lesson  of  practical  consequence  to  us.  And  it 
behoves  us  to  look  closely  at  the  facts,  and  see 
what  Solomon's  apostasy  and  folly  really  was, 
that  we  may  avoid  that  which  is  in  fact  the 
same. 

We  are  not  to  conceive  of  the  matter  as  if 

Preached  in  Anerlet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Evening,  August  5,  1888. 


26  SOLOMON :  [ii. 

Solomon,  in  the  height  of  his  wisdom,  had 
become  a  grovelhng  idolater.  He  was,  indeed, 
intoxicated  and  blinded  with  the  pomp  of  his 
greatness  ;  but  he  was  not  quite  so  stupid  in 
this  matter  as  the  popular  notion  regards  him. 
Having  builded  his  magnificent  Temple  to 
Jehovah,  he  did  not  go  about  to  dishonour  it 
by  abandoning  it  for  the  shrines  of  idols,  and 
forsaking  the  worship  of  his  father's  God  for 
the  deities  of  foreigners. 

Modern  times  have  illustrated  the  case. 
When  the  Pope  was  sovereign  in  Eome, 
Protestant  worship  was  as  stringently  pro- 
hibited in  that  city  as  ever  was  idolatry  in 
Israel.  Nevertheless,  the  English  or  Ameri- 
can minister,  enjoying  the  rights  accorded  to 
his  nation,  might  freely  practise  the  forms 
that  were  interdicted  to  Papal  subjects  as 
heretical. 

Now  the  record,  however  sternly  disapprov- 
ing of  the  fact,  nevertheless  states  the  fact  as 
a  thing  apparently  similar  to  this.  It  was  not 
for  himself  or  his  subjects  that  Solomon  built 
these  idolatrous  shrines,  but  "/or  his  foreign 
wives."  He  had  a  numerous  harem,  con- 
spicuous in  which  were  some  foreign  prin- 
cesses.   As  a  concession  to  these,  and  probably 


il]      an  old  stoey  with  a  new  face.      27 

as  a  mark  of  respect  to  the  states  with  which 
he  had  formed  these  matrimonial  alliances,  he 
erected  these  shrines  to  the  deities  of  their 
several  countries.  His  policy  in  this  respect 
was  long  foUowed  by  his  successors.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  historian  does  not  blame 
them  for  tolerating  the  shrines  which  he 
blames  Solomon  for  introducing.  Even  dur- 
ing the  reigns  of  kings  whose  piety  is  highly 
commended  in  the  sacred  history,  these  shrines 
to  the  heathen  deities  were  tolerated  under  the 
eaves,  as  it  were,  of  the  national  Temple. 
Not  until  the  reign  of  Josiah,  near  the  end  of 
the  monarchy,  were  they  finally  destroyed  in 
the  zeal  of  a  great  revival  of  orthodoxy. 

The  Books  of  the  Kings  are  both  a  history 
and  a  philosophy  of  history,  that  is,  an  ex- 
planation of  historical  facts  by  their  causes. 
Written  long  after  Solomon,  in  the  period 
when  the  nation  had  come  under  the  sceptre 
of  a  foreign  power,  the  historian  records  not 
only  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy, 
but  also  what  appeared  to  him  to  be  the  cause 
of  its  decline.  This  he  found  in  a  decay  of 
orthodoxy  by  the  intrusion  of  heathen  modes 
of  worship.  He  traces  the  evil  back  to 
Solomon,  and  attributes   the   great  rebelHon, 


28  SOLOMON :  [ii. 

which  divided  the  kingdom  in  his  son's  time, 
to  the  anger  of  God  at  the  allovv^ance  which 
Solomon  had  granted  to  the  idolatrous  worship 
of  his  foreign  wives. 

A  closer  study  of  the  history  gives  us  a  dif- 
ferent view  of  the  matter,  and  a  different  idea 
of  what  Solomon's  apostasy  was.  The  prac- 
tical lesson,  to  which  we  shall  come  in  this 
modified  aspect  of  the  case,  will  not  be  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  that  to  which  tradition  has 
accustomed  us.  But  it  will  be  closer  to  the 
facts  of  history,  and  quite  as  pertinent  to  the 
conditions  and  the  dangers  of  our  own  times. 

We  shall  find,  for  substance,  that  Solomon's 
apostasy  was  not  in  religion  so  much  as  in 
morals  ;  not  that  he  became  a  heretic,  but  that 
he  became  a  tyrant ;  and  that  the  Divine  dis- 
pleasure which  was  manifested  in  the  rebellion 
against  his  successor  was  provoked,  not  by  the 
idol  r.hrines  he  built  for  his  wives,  but  by  the 
oppression  of  which  he  was  guilty  towards  his 
subjects.  It  is  true,  as  the  record  states,  that 
"  his  heart  was  turned''  from  his  father's  God, 
but  it  was  not  to  the  idols  of  his  wives,  so 
much  as  to  the  idols  of  his  own  heart — a  love 
of  magnificence,  which  he  gratified  unfeelingly 
by  heartless  exactions  from  his  people.     Just 


II.]    AN  OLD  STORY  WITH  A  NEW  FACE.    29 

as  Louis  XV.  sowed  the  seed  of  the  French 
Eevolution  by  the  harem,  the  palaces,  and  the 
army  which  he  sustained  by  extortion  from  his 
subjects,  so  did  the  far  wiser  Solomon  bequeath 
revolution  to  his  son  as  the  effect  of  his  apos- 
tasy from  justice  to  oppression. 

In  Solomon's  history,  however,  we  are  to 
regard  the  general  as  well  as  the  special  lesson. 
The  general  lesson  which  Solomon  gives  to  all 
time  is  in  the  contrast  of  what  he  was  with 
what  he  became,  the  contrast  of  actual  results 
with  what  might  naturally  have  been  expected, 
the  folly  perpetrated  by  the  man  of  exalted 
wisdom.  No  thoughtful  mind  can  study  the 
history  of  Solomon  without  a  fresh  impression 
of  the  hardening  and  blinding  influence  exerted 
upon  the  heart  by  the  possession  of  power  and 
wealth.  This  was  what  "  turned  Solomons 
heart  from  God,'"  as  the  historian  tells  us; 
not  however  as  an  apostate  from  a  Divine 
ritual,  but  as  an  apostate  from  the  Divine 
righteousness. 

The  child  learns  early  that  the  wisest  man 
was  Solomon.  If  mere  intelligence  could 
secure  a  man  against  ruinous  errors,  Solomon 
was  more  than  trebly  guarded. 

He   came   of  a  wise   stock.      His   mother, 


30  SOLOMON  :  [ii. 

Bathslieba,  was  a  grand-daughter  of  David's 
famous  counsellor,  Ahithopliel,  the  wisest  man 
of  his  time. 

His  education  was  carefully  directed.  He 
tells  us  that  he  was  taught  by  his  father  to 
"  get  wisdom  "  as  the  principal  thing.  And  he 
seems  to  have  done  so,  for  David  tells  him,  at 
his  accession  to  the  throne,  "  Thou  art  a  wise 
man,  a?id  hioioest  what  thou  oughtest  to  do." 

He  also  seems,  in  his  early  life,  to  have 
conscientiously  striven  to  know  what  was 
right.  His  first  recorded  prayer  was  for  this  : 
"  Give  Thy  servant  an  understanding  heart  to 
judge  Thy  people,  that  I  may  discern  between 
good  and  had.'' 

If  now  we  look  at  the  various  unfoldings  of 
Solomon's  wisdom,  it  grows  upon  our  admira- 
tion as  a  wide-branched  and  deep-rooted  tree, 
able  to  weather  all  storms. 

He  has  been  called  the  first  great  naturalist 
and  m.an  of  science  in  history.  "He  spake 
of  trees,  from  the  cedar  tree  that  is  in  Lebanon 
unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth  out  of  the  wall. 
He  spake  also  of  beasts,  and  of  fowl,  and  of 
creeping  things,  and  of  fishes.'"  Or,  as  we 
should  say  in  modern  phrase,  he  was  a 
botanist,    a    zoologist,    an    ornithologist,    an 


II.]    AN  OLD  STORY  WITH  A  NEW  FACE.    31 

entomologist,  and  an  ichthyologist.  His 
knowledge  was  encyclopedic.  Commerce  also 
sprang  up  under  his  hand,  reaching  to  the 
extremities  of  the  known  world,  and  bringing 
to  him,  as  the  visit  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
indicates,  the  ideas  as  well  as  the  products  of 
distant  lands. 

Furthermore,  in  the  exercise  of  his  varied 
wisdom  he  became  a  distinguished  teacher  of 
mankind.  "  He  spake  three  thousand  proverbs, 
and  his  songs  were  a  thousand  and  five."  Says 
Dean  Stanley  :  "  The  teaching  of  Solomon  is 
the  sanctification  of  common  sense  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  and  to  this  the  final  seal  is  set  by 
the  adoption  of  the  same  style  of  thought,  in 
the  New  Testament,  by  Him  who  with  His 
Apostles  taught  in  Solomon's  porch,  and  ex- 
pressly compared  His  wisdom  to  the  wisdom 
which  gathered  the  nations  round  Solomon  of 
old." 

Still  more,  the  wisdom  of  Solomon,  however 
deep  its  spring,  drew  from  other  minds  as  well 
as  his  own.  His  views,  however  broad,  were 
broadened  by  intercourse  with  other  sages. 
He  appears  to  be  the  centre  of  a  group  of  wise 
men,  whom  we  may  compare  to  the  seven 
sages  of  Greece  in  later  times.     The  maxims 


32  SOLOMON :  [ii. 

of  this  wise  fraternity  have  come  down  to  us 
under  Solomon's  name  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs, 
where  we  read  of  them  as  the  "  seven  2nllars  " 
of  the  House  of  Wisdom.  Among  such  asso- 
ciates the  wisdom  of  their  great  chief  was 
cultivated  and  grew. 

And  finally,  in  the  development  of  Solomon's 
Mdsdom  we  find  what  was  most  remarkable  in 
that  age,  and  what  even  in  our  age  has  still 
to  be  insisted  on — a  clear  recognition  that 
morality,  justice,  truth,  and  mercy  far  outrank 
all  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  lie  close  to  the 
heart  of  religion,  and  furnish  the  only  stable 
basis  of  government.  "To  do  justice  and 
judgment  are  more  acceptable  to  the  Loed  thayi 
sacrifice.''  "  The  king  that  faithfully  judgeth 
the  poor,  his  throne  shall  he  established  for 
ever  J" 

Contemplating  this  so  widely-branching  and 
deeply-rooted  tree  of  wisdom,  well  may  we  ask 
with  surprise,  How  could  it  fall  ?  Aye,  how 
could  it  ?  But  it  fell,  and  great  was  the  fall  of 
it.  What  sagacity,  what  philosophy  can  boast 
itself  impregnable  after  this,  or  neglect  a 
ceaseless  vigilance  against  the  insidious  and 
unsuspected  causes  of  a  fall  equally  surprising 
and  calamitous. 


II.]    AN  OLD  STORY  WITH  A  NEW  FACE.    33 

The  Arab  legend  pithily  tells  us  that  a  worm 
was  concealed  in  Solomon's  staff,  and  secretly- 
gnawed  it  asunder.  What  was  this  hidden 
worm?  Wb.3Lt  wrought  this  wise  man's 
marvellous  apostasy  to  folly  ?  What  has  the 
same  human  nature  to  guard  against  to-day,  in 
its  highest  pride  of  opinion  and  fulness  of 
resource,  at  the  risk  of  a  fall  Hke  Solomon's  ? 

As  we  study  the  record  of  Solomon's  great- 
ness, we  see  that,  with  the  exception  of  a 
pregnant  hint  or  two,  only  one  side  of  the 
history  of  his  reign  is  told.  The  splendour  of 
the  royal  city  is  depicted,  but  the  distress 
which  formed  its  counterpart  is  almost  wholly 
hid,  except  in  the  one  word  of  complaint  which 
his  subjects  used  in  their  humble  petition  to 
his  son  and  successor  for  rehef :  "  Thy  father 
made  our  yoke  grievous." 

That  it  must  have  been  a  grievous  yoke  is 
plain  from  the  account  of  the  magnificence 
which  Solomon  created  through  the  tribute 
and  the  labour  which  he  imposed  upon  a  plain 
agricultural  people. 

The  Temple,  which  was  seven  years  in 
building,  may  well  have  been  acceptable  to  the 
national  spirit,  as  the  fit  memorial  of  their 
loyalty  to  the  God  under  whose  favour  they 


34  SOLOMON  :  [ll. 

had  grown  to  greatness.  "  B^it  Solomon  loas 
thirteen  years  in  building  his  oion  house,"  on 
whose  tower  glittered  a  thousand  golden  shields, 
in  whose  porch  rose  a  throne  of  ivory,  all 
whose  plate  and  table-service  was  of  gold,  ''for 
silver  was  nothing  accounted  of  in  the  days  of 
Solomon."  For  mules,  hitherto  deemed  good 
enough  for  the  royal  family,  he  substituted 
horses  imported  from  Egypt,  and  constructed 
four  thousand  stalls  adjacent  to  his  palace. 
The  daily  consumption  of  his  household  in- 
cluded thirty  oxen  and  a  hundred  sheep,  with 
other  things  in  proportion.  "  The  hing  made 
silver  to  he  in  Jerusalem  as  stones."  To  this 
opulence  the  tribute  of  allied  princes  brought  no 
small  share.  But  a  glimpse  of  the  burdens  im- 
posed upon  the  nation  itself  is  given  in  the  brief 
mention  of  the  corvee,  or  forced  labour,  which 
was  required  for  all  this  grand  architecture 
that  now  beautified  Jerusalem.  What  the 
builders  of  the  Pyramids  did,  what  the  builder 
of  the  Suez  Canal  did,  impressing  the  requisite 
number  of  hands  to  do  the  work,  Solomon 
seems  to  have  done.  "  The  king  raised  a  levy 
out  of  all  Israel,  and  the  levy  was  thirty  tliou- 
sand  men.  And  he  sent  them  to  Lebanon,  ten 
thousand  a  month,  by  courses."     The  odium  of 


II.]    AN  OLD  STORY  WITH  A  NEW  FACE.    35 

this  service  seems  to  have  expressed  itself  in 
the  fact  that  the  only  blood  shed  in  the  revolt 
of  the  ten  tribes  from  Solomon's  son  was  the 
blood  of  the  officer  at  the  head  of  this  levy — 
Adoniram. 

Sifijns  of  disaffection  were  not  altogether 
wanting  in  Solomon's  time.  Some  of  the 
tributary  nations  revolted.  A  free-spirited 
leader  of  opposition,  Jeroboam,  appeared  in  the 
powerful  tribe  of  Ephraim,  but  was  forced  to 
flee  the  country.  Blinded  by  the  splendour 
with  which  he  had  surrounded  himself,  the 
wise  but  foolish  despot  heeded  not  the  murmurs 
of  a  suffering  people.  But  when  the  reins  fell 
at  his  death  into  feebler  hands,  the  long  ac- 
cumulated grievances  broke  out  in  a  formidable 
uprising.  The  stupid  obstinacy  with  which 
his  son  announced  his  intention  to  persevere 
in  his  father's  policy  and  to  coerce  opposition 
by  severity,  was  followed  by  a  secession  of  five- 
sixths  of  the  tribes  from  his  sceptre,  and  the 
reduction  of  the  empire  of  which  Jerusalem 
was  the  centre  to  the  rank  of  a  petty  princi- 
pality. 

Thus  the  wisest  of  kings  ruined  his  own 
realm  simply  by  infidelity  to  his  own  principles. 
Faithful  justice  to  the   poor  he  had  himself 


36  SOLOMON :  [ii. 

declared  to  be  the  basis  of  a  stable  throne ; 
but  nevertheless  he  alienated  the  mass  of  his 
subjects  from  his  sway  by  his  oppressive  exac- 
tions. If  we  call  him  the  wisest  fool  in  history, 
we  still  are  of  the  same  clay  as  he.  What,  in 
fact,  is  the  essence  of  such  folly  as  his  but  that 
which  is  common  to  all,  the  gap  between 
knowing  and  doing,  the  inconsistency  of  prac- 
tice with  theory — the  profession  of  exalted 
sentiments  and  the  toleration  of  actual  contra- 
diction to  them  in  base  conduct?  Let  him 
that  is  without  sin  in  this  respect  cast  the  first 
stone  at  Solomon. 

This  general  lesson,  however  important,  is 
not  the  only  moral  to  be  drawn  from  the  fall 
of  Solomon.  There  is  a  special  lesson  of  equal 
consequence  to  us.  It  is  a  lesson  that  has 
been  lost  sight  of,  and  is  at  present  most  neces- 
sary to  be  brought  to  our  attention. 

The  reign  of  Solomon  was  a  period  of  won- 
derful material  development,  as  rapid  as  it  was 
grand.  The  contrast  between  his  father's 
time  and  his  is  a  contrast  of  patriarchal  sim- 
plicity with  imperial  magnificence.  Temple 
and  palace  took  the  place  of  tabernacle  and 
tenement.  A  rustic  population  was  dazzled 
by  the  foreign  luxuries  and  wonders  which  a 


II.]         AN    OLD    STORY   WITH   A   NEY\'   FACE.         37 

newly  opened  commerce  imported.  The 
cedar  of  Lebanon,  the  gold  of  Ophir,  the 
spices  of  Arabia,  the  horses  and  chariots  of 
Egypt,  the  ivory,  apes,  and  peacocks  of  India, 
were  suddenly  introduced  among  the  vineyards 
and  olive  groves,  the  cornfields  and  pastures 
of  Palestine.  The  impression  of  such  a  widen- 
ing of  the  horizon  of  knowledge,  and  such  an 
expansion  of  material  wealth,  all  in  the  life  of 
one  generation,  we  can  adequately  represent 
only  by  the  development  of  great  cities  and 
continental  enterprises  that  America  has 
exhibited  since  the  discovery  of  Californian 
gold. 

What,  now,  is  more  natural,  and  at  the 
same  time  more  fallacious,  than  to  regard  a 
grand  material  development  like  this  as  iden- 
tical with  real  prosperity?  It  is  often  so 
regarded  to-day,  and  in  so  regarding  it  men 
do  but  repeat  Solomon's  mistake.  Intoxicated 
with  magnificence,  he  took  scant  care  for 
niercj,  for  the  comfort  and  welfare  of  the 
multitudes  upon  whose  contributions  of  labour 
and  taxes  the  splendour  of  the  royal  city  and 
court  was  based. 

There  is  but  one  statement  of  the  record 
which    appears   at    all  inconsistent  with   this 


38  SOLOMON:  [ii. 

"view:  "  Judah  and  Israel  ivere  many,  as  the 
sand  which  is  by  the  sea  in  rnultitude,  eating  and 
drinking  and  malcing  merry.''  This,  however, 
may  well  have  been  in  the  earlier  period 
of  Solomon's  long  reign  of  forty  years,  and 
before  the  burdens  had  been  imposed  against 
which  the  petitioners  for  relief  protested  as  a 
*'  grievous  yoke." 

The  historical  spectacle  thus  presented,  a 
great  and  rapid  concentration  of  wealth  run- 
ning parallel  to  growing  discontent  among  the 
poor,  is  specially  instructive  for  every  period 
of  brilliant  material  development,  such  as  we 
have  witnessed  in  our  lifetime.  It  is  not  the 
concentration  but  the  diffusion  of  wealth  that 
gives  stability  to  any  form  of  society.  The 
increase  of  wealth  and  the  increase  of  the 
commonwealth  are  not  always  identical. 
Even  under  a  despotism,  much  more  under 
any  constitutional  government,  the  grievances 
of  the  poor  and  weak  will  force  a  hearing  if 
they  are  not  welcomed  to  it.  Solomon  cared 
much  for  God's  Temple  of  cedar  and  gold,  but 
little  for  God's  living  temple,  man.  It  is  not 
the  churches  of  any  city,  but  the  humble 
tenements,  whose  condition  gives  the  surest 
practical  test  of  the  regard  actually  paid  by 


II.]    AN  OLD  STORY  WITH  A  NEW  FACE.    39 

society  to  Christianity.  We  mistake  when  wo 
measure  Solomon's  piety  by  his  Temple,  and 
we  must  not  make  the  same  mistake  in  esti- 
mating our  own.  If  we  are  to  judge  fairly 
of  the  Christianity  which  worships  in  the 
cathedral,  we  must  inspect  the  human  habita- 
tions which  it  maintains  in  the  slums. 

The  fundamental  error  of  Solomon  was  an 
error  from  which  no  period  of  history  has  been 
exempt — the  divorce  of  theoretical  from  prac- 
tical rehgion.  His  wisdom  plainly  warned 
him,  that  righteousness  is  the  ritual  which 
God  requires  first ;  and  so  he  tells  us  in  his 
own  proverbs.  And  yet,  though  his  Temple 
was  not  wanting  in  magnificence,  his  adminis- 
tration was  wanting  in  mercy.  In  conse- 
quence, that  Temple,  built  for  the  common 
worship  of  the  twelve  tribes,  was  deserted  by 
ten  of  them  in  the  lifetime  of  some  who  had 
taken  part  in  its  dedication,  and  the  worship  of 
the  golden  calf  was  set  up  at  Bethel  in  its  stead. 

The  golden  calf  is  pretty  widely  worshipped 
to-day.  We  hear  many  and  timely  lamenta- 
tions of  the  neglect  of  Divine  worship,  agnos- 
ticism, and  infidehty.  Grave  evils  ;  but  back 
of  these  is  the  fundamental  evil  of  Solomon's 
mistake.     Now,  as  then,  is  theoretical  religion 


40  SOLOMON  :  [ll, 

often  divorced  from  practical,  and  orthodoxy 
more  cultivated  than  humanity.  Not  but 
that  we  see  noble  charities  on  every  hand. 
I  doubt  not  that  Solomon  also  practised  alms- 
giving. But  as  to  the  humanity  that  is 
blended  with  religion,  it  is  not  yet  thirty  years 
since  it  took  a  bloody  war  to  open  the  eyes  of 
many  American  Christians  to  the  iniquity  of 
holding  men  as  slaves — a  war  in  which  it  was 
not  without  difficulty  that  many  British 
Christians  were  restrained  from  intervening 
on  the  slaveholder's  side.  Nor  are  all  Chris- 
tian eyes  yet  open  to  the  inhumanity  of  a. 
kind  of  slavery,  in  which  the  strong  still  ob- 
tain permanent  command  of  the  labour  and  the 
earnings  of  the  weak,  and  hold  them,  though 
freemen  in  name,  in  a  sort  of  industrial  bond- 
age to  hard  conditions.  Says  a  college  pro- 
fessor in  New  England  :  "The  wild  barbarity 
of  primitive  times  has  given  place  to  the  more 
refined  and  systematic  cruelty  of  organised 
society." 

Undoubtedly,  many  Christian  people  care 
more  for  making  labour  cheap  than  labourers 
comfortable  ;  and  what  is  this  but  inhumanity  ? 
more  for  erecting  houses  to  God  than  for 
legislation   to   improve   the   dwellings   of  the 


II.]        AN   OLD   STORY  WTLTH  A  NEW   FACE.        41 

poor :  so  far,  doubtless,  they  are  with  Solomon. 
And  it  is  notorious  that  religious  conventions 
spend  much  more  time  in  debates  on  theology 
and  church  machinery  and  schemes  for  ex- 
tending the  Gospel,  as  they  understand  it  in 
its  theoretical  aspects,  than  in  discussing  the 
practical  applications  of  the  Gospel  to  social  life, 
so  as  to  make  business  more  just  and  more 
benevolent,  competition  more  equitable  and 
more  humane,  employers  more  sympathetic 
toward  employees,  and  the  rich  more  consider- 
ate of  the  poor.  The  Christian  people  of 
America  and  England,  so  far  as  the  humanities 
of  social  relations  are  concerned,  do  not  Hve  up 
to  the  laws  of  Moses,  much  less  to  the  laws  of 
Christ.  And  this  defect  is  coupled,  as  in 
Solomon's  case,  with  zeal  for  the  externals  of 
rehgion,  for  sanctuaries,  and  for  creeds.  Even 
now  we  see  in  New  York  much  more  interest 
manifested  in  planning  a  ten-million-dollar 
cathedral,  than  in  reforming  the  horrible  tene- 
ment-houses, where  babies  die  in  summer  heat 
like  flies,  and  where  no  domestic  decency  or 
morality  can  be  maintained.  No  wonder  that 
there  is  some  infidelity  in  consequence,  and 
that  many  have  deserted  the  Temple  for  the 
shrine  of  the  golden  calf. 


42  SOLOMON :  [ii. 

But  infidelity  cannot  spring  from  genuine 
religion  ;  it  can  be  begotten  only  by  infidelity. 
The  parent  infidelity  is  to-day,  the  same  as  of 
yore,  to  be  found  inside  the  Temple,  in  the 
worshippers  who  rear  the  sacred  Cross  aloft  on 
steeple-tops,  and  leave  it  there,  regardless  of 
the  essential  humanity  of  the  Gospel  of  which 
the  Cross  is  pledge  ;  expecting,  indeed,  that  the 
minister  of  the  Cross  will  make  it  his  main 
object  in  life  to  do  good  unselfishly,  but 
reckoning  that  the  follower  of  the  Cross  may 
make  it  his  chief  aim  to  get  on  in  the  world. 
O  brethren,  Solomon  reads  a  lesson  to  the 
Church  of  to-day,  which  is  imitating  his  folly 
in  measuring  life  and  success  and  glory  by  a 
materialistic  standard  rather  than  a  spiritual, 
by  the  scale  of  acquisitions  in  wealth  and  show 
and  power,  rather  than  by  the  scale  of  dis- 
tributions through  humane  sympathies  and  in 
benevolent  services. 

If  the  modern  house  of  God  is  to  hold  the 
people  to  it  any  better  than  the  ancient,  it  can 
be  only  as  the  builders  of  that  house  remem- 
ber, what  the  wise  builder  of  the  Temple 
knew,  but  forgot ;  that  the  altar  which  God 
most  jealously  stands  by  is  "  the  altar  of 
human  need,"  the  need   of  justice  even  before 


II.]    AN  OLD  STOBY  WITH  A  NEW  FACE.   43 

charity.  The  idols  to  which,  in  Solomon's 
company,  the  disciples  of  Christ,  even  wiser 
than  he,  are  in  danger  of  falling  away  from  the 
altar  of  God,  are  not  the  idols  of  the  intellect, 
to  which  orthodoxy  may  be  sacrificed,  but  the 
idols  of  the  market,  to  which  the  rights  of  the 
poor  and  the  weak  may  be  sacrificed.  If  now, 
as  in  the  midst  of  Solomon's  magnificence, 
along  with  the  hallelujahs  of  glorified  art  and 
commerce  and  wealth  there  is  audible  the  under- 
tone of  a  miserere  from  the  depths  of  a  growing 
human  distress,  we  must  beware  of  the  worm 
hid  in  Solomon's  staff.  We  must  clear  our- 
selves from  all  indifference  to  the  demands  of 
men  for  justice,  and  for  the  sympathy  which 
only  can  hinder  selfishness  from  injustice. 
"  The  LoBD  our  God  is  a  jealous  God  " — not 
jealous  for  Himself,  but  jealous  for  His  children, 
for  His  little  ones.  "■And  what  doth  the  Lobd 
require  of  thee,  hut  to  do  justice  and  to  love 
mercy  and  to  ivalk  humbly  loith  thy  God?  " 


III. 

HELPING    GOB. 


III. 

HELPING   GOD. 

"Jesus  said,   Take  ye  away  the  stone." — John  xi.  39. 

The  superhuman  work  which  Jesus  wrought 
at  the  tomb  of  Lazarus  was  so  glorious,  that 
it  has  drawn  attention  away  from  an  im- 
portant human  work  which  co-operated  with 
it.  The  taking  away  of  the  stone  from  the 
door  of  the  tomb  was  as  essential  to  the 
restoration  of  Lazarus  to  his  life  in  this 
world,  as  was  the  resuscitation  of  the  vital 
spark  itself  in  his  cold  clay.  Jesus  could 
have  done  both  Himself.  The  same  voice 
whose  mandate,  ''Lazarus,  come  forth,'"  was 
obeyed  by  the  issuing  of  the  swathed  form 
from  its  transient  imprisonment,  could  like- 
wise have  bidden  the  stone  to  roll  away,  and 
it  should  have  rolled — a  lesser  wonder  fitly 
inaugurating  the  greater.      But  Jesus  under- 

Pkeached    in    Anerley    Coxgkegational    Church, 
Sunday  Morning,  August  12,  1888. 


48  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

took  to  do  only  what  inferior  power  could  not. 
What  others  could,  He  required  that  they 
should.  Only  when  they  could  do  no  more,  He 
did  all  the  rest. 

This  incident,  the  greater  power  choosing 
to  depend  on  the  lesser  power  for  a  small  part 
of  a  stupendous  work,  reveals  to  us  God's 
method  of  bringing  great  and  good  things  to 
pass.  In  this  revelation  of  the  Divine  method 
toward  us  we  are  shown  also  the  rule  and 
limit  of  our  dependence  upon  that  Divine  aid 
which  it  is  both  our  instinct  and  our  duty  to 
seek. 

I.  As  to  God's  method. 

"We  have  been  taught  to  pray,  "  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread,"  a  petition  which  includes 
all  that  is  necessary  for  the  preservation  and 
development  of  life.  But  we  find  that  God's 
method  of  giving  is  to  put  things  where  we  can 
get  them,  and  to  put  on  us  the  responsibility 
for  getting  them.  The  materials  of  the  bread 
we  shall  eat  in  future  years  are  now  in  the  soil 
and  the  water  and  the  air,  and  the  power  that 
is  to  combine  these  materials  is  ready  in  the 
sun ;  but  it  depends  on  us  to  place  the 
materials  properly  for  the  superhuman  power 
to  work  upon  them.      The  result  will  be  the 


III.]  HELPING   GOD.  49 

bread  we  pray  for.  Sometiraes,  when  a  man 
thinks  how  the  great  powers  of  nature  are 
working  with  the  regularity  of  a  machine  to 
bring  forth  and  ripen  each  year's  crop,  while 
all  that  man  does  is  simply  to  open  doors,  and 
keep  them  open,  for  the  power  of  God  to  flow 
freely  through,  he  may  question  what  his 
prayer  for  daily  bread  has  to  do  with  the 
result.  He  will  not  question  much,  as  soon  as 
he  perceives  that  God  is  depending  upon  his 
help  for  the  result.  His  prayer  is  not  so 
much  a  prayer  for  the  stability  of  the  machine 
of  Nature,  as  for  the  quickening  of  his  own 
fidelity  and  diligence  as  the  feeder  and 
operator  of  the  machine,  that  he  may  be 
delivered  from  sloth  and  sleepiness,  and  not 
abuse  his  freedom  to  neglect  his  proper  part. 
That  is  the  main  part  of  the  true  meaning  we 
should  find  in  our  prayer  for  daily  bread ;  it  is 
prayer  for  constancy  in  the  duty  of  getting  it 
by  taking  away  every  stone  that  hinders. 

It  is  just  the  same  when  we  pray  for  the 
bread  of  spiritual  life,  in  the  truth  and  grace 
that  our  higher  nature  lives  by  ;  the  power  of 
God  is  ever  present  to  come  in  ;  our  prayer  is 
to  be  for  constancy  in  keeping  open  the  door 
of  faith    and    love   through   which   it    enters. 

4 


50  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

In  every  department  in  which  we  study 
God's  method  of  sustaining  and  developing 
the  hfe  of  man,  we  find  that  he  rigidly 
adheres  to  the  rule  of  requiring  men  to 
take  away  the  stone  which  blocks  the  way 
to  good.  Preventable  diseases,  arising  from 
:filth  and  miasma,  have  scourged  the  world  for 
•centuries ;  but  no  other  Divine  voice  than 
that  of  the  promptings  and  warnings  that 
are  given  through  suffering  and  death  has 
guided  men  to  discover  the  cause  of  the 
plague  and  remove  it.  Those  scenes  of 
horror  recurring  in  the  crowded  and  filthy 
■cities  of  the  East,  ever  since  the  pestilence 
ravaged  Jerusalem  more  than  twenty-eight 
hundred  years  ago,  proclaim  how  long  and 
how  much  God  will  let  men  suffer,  until 
they  bestir  themselves  to  take  away  the 
■stone. 

When  we  study  the  progress  of  the  discovery 
and  invention  by  which  men  have  multiplied 
their  productive  powers  and  enhanced  their 
intelligence  and  welfare  thereby,  it  would 
appear  that  God  has  made  the  world  a  many- 
doored  treasure-house  replete  with  innumer- 
able utilities,  and  having  bestowed  on  men  the 
key   of    a  wondrous    inventiveness,    has    ap- 


III.]  HELPING   GOD.  51 

pointed  to  them  the  responsibihty  of  finding 
and  opening  the  stone  doors.  From  one  of 
these  doors  there  comes  the  power  of  heat ; 
from  another,  the  power  of  electricity;  from 
another,  the  power  of  diffusing  thought  by  the 
printed  page  ;  from  another,  the  anodyne  and 
the  anaesthetic  that  reheve  from  pain  ;  from 
another,  the  explosives  that  cut  through  moun- 
tains the  highways  of  commerce  ;  from  others 
the  knowledge  of  various  sorts,  by  which 
health  and  intelligence  and  peaceful  order  are 
promoted.  These  doors,  which  we  find  and 
open  from  day  to  day,  have  been  waiting  for  our 
key  of  discovery  since  men  began  to  breathe. 
We  are  to  thank  their  Creator  for  what  we 
unlock  from  them  even  more  than  if  special 
messengers  from  heaven  brought  it  every  day  ; 
inasmuch  as  self-support  is  better  for  a  family 
than  almshouse  support,  or  as  the  living  that 
€omes  through  educated  effort  is  better  than 
the  living  that  comes  through  a  spoon  in  the 
hand  of  a  nurse.  These  doors  to  waiting 
treasures  lie  under  Africa  undiscovered  to-day, 
as  they  lay  under  Europe  and  America  a 
thousand  years  ago,  waiting,  as  Kepler  said 
God  had  "waited  six  thousand  years  for  an 
observer,"  waiting  as  the  lakes  of    oil  under 


52  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

Pennsylvania  waited,  simply  for  the  borer  to 
take  away  the  stone. 

In  the  lands  of  highest  knowledge,  where 
the   most    doors   to   power  for  progress  have 
been   found,    and  the  secret  of  mastery  over 
Nature  best  learned,  the  same  law  of  respon- 
sibility for  the  use  of  the  key  still  insists  on 
further  compliances,  and  voices  its  command 
by   the    complaints    of    manifold  wants   still 
clamouring  to  be  met,  and   many   evils  still 
waiting   for   the    delayed    remedy.       Though 
Lazarus  is   alive,  and   waiting  to  appear,  he 
cannot  come  forth  until    the   requirement  is 
obeyed,  "  Take  ye  aioay  the  stoneJ"      Full  as 
the  pipe  may  be  of  gas  or  water,  it  will  not 
flow  until  the  finger  turns  the  faucet.    Schools 
and  libraries  may  bring  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
ages  to  our  hand,  but  the  hand  of  study  must 
unseal  the  fountain  ere  we  can  drink.      The 
most  fertile  fields  may  lie  next  our  door,  but 
"  if  any  will  not  ivorJc,  neither  shall  he  eat.'* 
The   church- spire  may   be  in  sight  from  our 
window,  but  except  we  heed  the  hint  of  its 
heaven-pointing  finger,  and   lift    our    desires 
where  it  points  them,  the  heavenly  treasure 
remains  to  us  an  unopened  mine.     "  The  Jci?ig- 
doni  of  heaven  is  like  treasure  hid  in  a  field,'"' 


III.]  HELPING   GOD.  63 

valueless  to  us  till  we  take  away  the  stone. 
The  bread  of  spiritual  life,  just  like  our  daily 
dinner,  is  put  where  we  can  get  it,  if  willing  to 
seek  it.  In  each  case  the  election  is  left  with 
us  to  work  for  it  or  starve. 

But  think,  friends,  how  many  lives  are  beg- 
gared, intellectually,  morally,  spiritually,  by 
disobedience  to  this  primal  and  universal  law 
of  sweating  for  our  necessary  bread.  How 
many  good  and  noble  purposes  are  smothered 
in  their  birth  by  the  laziness  or  cowardice 
that  will  not  take  the  stone  out  of  the  way. 
How  many  rich  opportunities  are  lost  because 
their  price  of  endeavour  is  begrudged.  How 
much  of  life  is  dawdled  away  because  it  is 
easier  to  say  I  canH  than  I  will.  How  many 
never  come  to  the  Table  of  Christ  because  of 
the  stone  of  old  habit,  or  prejudice,  or  un- 
spiritual  lethargy,  which  blocks  their  way  to 
participation  in  Divine  inspirations  of  power  to 
live  a  higher  and  worthier  life.  Think  on 
these  things  to-day.  Perhaps  some  good 
deed,  some  new  and  better  beginning,  long 
delayed,  reminds  you  now  afresh  of  lost  time 
and  hindered  benefits.  As  conscience  mur- 
murs, "  I  meant  to,  I  might  have  done  it  long 
aero,"    let   the  Divine  command   repeat  itself 


54  HELPING   GOD.  [ill, 

with  a  constrainirg  urgency,  "  Take  ye  awaj/ 
the  stone." 

II.  As  to  the  rule  and  limit  of  our  depend- 
ence upon  Divine  aid. 

During  a  long  period  that  has  hardly  yet 
gone  completely  by,  Christian  thought  centred 
in  the  idea  of  the  absolute  Sovereignty  of  God. 
God  was  so  great  that  man  was  nothing.  God 
was  so  almighty  that  man  could  do  nothing, 
except  sin,  until  God  took  hold  of  him,  and 
made  him  stop  sinning  by  an  "irresistible 
grace."  Men  were  exhorted  to  repent,  but 
were  told  from  the  pulpit  that  they  could  not 
repent  unless  it  should  please  God  to  make 
them  repent.  Men  were  exhorted  to  pray  for 
the  Holy  Spirit,  but  were  told  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  as  much  beyond  their  efforts  as  the 
wind,  and  praying  for  the  Spirit  was  like 
praying  for  the  wind ;  it  might  come,  and  it 
might  not ;  God  in  His  Sovereignty  might 
grant  or  refuse  their  prayer,  and  it  depended 
wholly  on  His  secret  will.  Jesus  had  com- 
pared the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  wind  in  respect 
to  its  secret  source  and  the  invisibility  of  its 
mighty  power;  but  they  had  misunderstood 
Him,  and  imagined  Him  to  speak  of  an 
arbitrary  power,    in    whose    sphere  of  action 


III.]  HELPING    GOD,  55 

they  had  alike  no  responsibihty  and  no- 
control. 

But  we  are  discovering  the  mistake  of  think- 
ing so.  We  read  the  Scriptures  more  in- 
telligently now.  God  moves  and  rules  the 
world  and  humanity  from  within.  The 
Christian  thought  of  the  recent  past,  which 
contemplated  God  as  afar  off,  separated 
from  man  and  the  world,  and  communicat- 
ing with  him  by  messengers,  has  risen  to  the 
truer  thought  of  a  still  older  past,  when  Chris- 
tianity first  proclaimed  the  union  of  humanity 
with  One  "  who  is  above  and  through  and 
in  us  all.''  The  Divine  Spirit,  through  whose 
prompting  the  heart  prays,  "  Our  Father,'"  is  as 
universally  diffused  as  the  air  that  swells  the 
sail,  the  heat  that  works  the  engine,  the 
gravitation  that  binds  every  dwelling,  stone 
by  stone,  to  its  base.  But,  whether  in  the 
lower  or  in  the  higher  ranges  of  life,  God  will 
work  out  our  welfare  and  salvation  only  as  we 
work  with  Him,  "  who  works  in  us  to  will  and 
to  do,"  omnipresent  ever,  but  operative  never, 
except  according  as  we  obey  His  requirement, 
"  Take  ye  aivay  the  stone." 

We  find  ourselves  obliged  by  the  inexorable 
conditions   of  the   Divine  laws  whose  special 


56  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

sphere  is  in  laboratory,  field,  and  factory.  So 
surely  as  there  are  not  two  Gods,  but  One,  the 
same  necessity  of  obedience  to  law  makes  its 
demand  in  every  province  of  spiritual  en- 
deavour for  the  realisations  of  Christian 
character  and  Christian  enterprise.  The 
powers  on  which  we  depend  for  the  life 
that  subsists  by  eating  and  drinking  are 
at  the  service  of  him  only  who  will  take 
away  the  stone,  and  open  the  door  that 
they  may  deliver  to  him  their  gifts.  So 
surely  as  God  is  One,  it  is  the  same  with  the 
higher  powers  on  which  the  higher  life 
depends,  which  is  in  conscience  toward  God, 
and  in  dutiful  communion  with  His  grace  and 
truth  approaching  us  in  Christ. 

The  word  of  Christ  that  strikes  the  ear, 
the  Table  of  Christ  before  the  eye,  are  always 
freighted  with  the  Holy  Spirit's  pov/er.  But  if 
a  non-conductor  divides  the  wire,  the  electric 
current  stops  ;  if  a  shutter  covers  the  window, 
the  light  turns  back  ;  if  a  stone  of  inattention 
or  scepticism  fills  the  doorway  of  the  heart,  the 
Spirit  is  as  though  He  were  not ;  His  power  as 
ineffective  as  though  it  were  not  present. 

What,  then,  is  the  rule,  and  what  the  limit 
of  our  dependence  on  God  ? 


III.]  HELPING   GOD.  57 

The  rule  is  that  we  must  depend  on  God  as 
in  us  as  well  as  above  us.  "  Ye  are  not  your 
own,''  says  the  Apostle.  Our  natural  faculties 
of  mind  and  body,  of  thought  and  affection 
and  choice,  are  not  only  ours  but  God's.  They 
are  not  only  from  Him.  They  are  a  part  of 
His  power,  just  as  really  as  are  the  heat  and 
light  and  magnetism  of  the  material  universe. 
So  far  only  as  we  use  them  according  to  His 
bidding,  they  work  out  His  good  will.  So  Paul 
taught,  when  he  said,  "J  j^ut  thee  in  remem- 
brance that  thou  stir  up  the  gift  of  God  which 
is  in  thee."  Very  likely  we  have  thought  of 
God  only  as  external  to  us,  and  of  His  powers 
only  as  coming  down  upon  us  out  of  a  far-off 
heaven.  The  Apostle  rebukes  us  for  that :  "  Say 
not  in  thine  heart,  Who  shall  ascend  into 
heaven  ?  Or,  who  shall  descend  into  the  deep  / 
The  Word  is  nigh  thee,  even  in  thy  mouth,  and 
in  thy  heart."  Now,  therefore,  let  us  think 
also  of  God  as  dwelling  with  us,  and  of  His 
power  as  lodged  within  us — power  to  think  a 
part  of  His  thought,  power  to  feel  some  of  His 
affections  both  as  to  sin  aud  as  to  righteous- 
ness, power  in  some  degree  to  will  His  will 
both  as  to  evil  and  as  to  good.  Such  is  Paul's 
doctrine,   when  he   says,    even    to    a    pagan 


58  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

audience,  "  In  Him  ice  have  our  being  "  In 
this  Scriptural  idea,  that  all  our  natural 
powers,  spiritual,  intellectual,  and  physical, 
are  a  part  of  God's  power,  we  find  an 
inspiration  for  all  effort  to  do  right,  we  find  a 
thought  which  energises,  sanctifies,  glorifies 
our  common  life. 

This,  then,  being  the  rule,  to  depend  on 
God  in  us  as  well  as  God  above  us,  what  is 
the  limit  of  our  proper  dependence  on  God  ? 

The  question  is  usually  put  thus :  How 
far  may  one  depend  on  God,  and  how  far  on 
one's  self?  This  is  a  wrong  way  of  putting 
it;  it  involves  the  old  mistake  that  God  is  only 
external  to  us,  that  our  natural  powers  are 
not  a  part  of  God's  power,  and  that  a  proper 
dependence  on  our  natural  powers  is  some- 
thing different  from  dependence  on  God  ;  that 
part  of  our  time  is  God's  and  the  rest  our 
own,  or  that  part  of  our  property  is  God's 
and  the  rest  our  own.  All  this  dividing  and 
distributing  between  what  is  God's  and  what 
is  not  God's  is  deceitful  and  mischievous  ;  let 
us  have  done  with  it.  To  depend  on  our 
personal  powers  in  religious  endeavour  is  the 
practical  way  of  depending  on  the  unknown 
power    of    the    Holy    Spirit,    because    it    is 


ni.]  HELPING   GOD.  59 

depending  on  that  known  part  of  His  power 
which  is  within  ourselves.  To  depend  on 
something  that  the  Holy  Spirit  may  do  for  us 
by-and-by,  without  depending  now  on  the 
power  of  attention,  the  power  of  reflection,  the 
power  of  choosing  right,  the  power  of  self- 
devotion  and  of  persevering  in  a  right  choice, 
and  whatever  other  power  from  God  has  been 
intrusted  to  us,  is  like  depending  on  next 
year's  profits  instead  of  depending  on  the 
money  in  hand ;  like  depending  on  some  friend 
sending  you  a  cart-load  of  water  from  the 
public  reservoir,  and  not  depending  on  your 
power  to  turn  the  faucet  in  your  house. 

The  man  who  says  that  self-dependence  in 
religious  endeavours  makes  a  man  self- 
righteous  and  forgetful  of  his  dependence  on 
God,  says  what  is  true  only  of  those  who  do 
not  understand  themselves,  or  understand 
what  proper  dependence  on  God  is.  A  man 
might  cut  the  pipe  connecting  him  with  the 
public  reservoir,  and  then  keep  his  faucet  open 
all  the  while,  but  get  no  water.  A  man  may 
break  his  connection  through  conscience  and 
prayer  v^dth  the  Infinite  reservoir  of  spiritual 
power,  and  all  the  natural  outlets  of  that 
power    in   church   services,    sermons,    sacra- 


60  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

ments,  will  then  be  dry  to  him,  and  he  will 
remain  a  dry  formalist  or  a  dry  sceptic.  But 
let  him  miderstand  his  living  relation  to  the 
living  God,  the  Source  of  all  supply,  let  him 
keep  open  his  spiritual  connections  with  God 
through  prayer,  let  him  begin  his  dependence 
on  God  by  using  that  portion  of  God's  power 
that  he  has  in  hand,  and  then  his  dependence 
on  himself  is  dependence  on  God  ;  there  is  no 
limit  to  such  dependence,  either  in  beginning 
or  in  ending.  The  stream  will  flow  for  ever,  so 
long  as  the  faucet  is  open  and  the  connections 
close.  Witness  the  word  of  the  Apostle,  "  All 
things  are  yours."  Witness  the  word  of 
Christ,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always.'' 

The  lesson  of  our  present  study  is  one 
which  concerns  us  all. 

There  are  many  to-day  in  Christian  congre- 
gations who  are  looking  for  some  Lazarus  to 
come  forth  in  life,  while  they  are  neglecting 
their  first  and  most  essential  duty  to  take 
away  the  stone.  There  are  many  who  are 
waiting  for  some  Divine  Breath  to  fill  sails 
which  they  keep  furled  to  the  mast,  some  fire 
from  heaven  to  fall  upon  the  altar  which  they, 
instead  of  kindling,  are  wetting  down  with 
their   own   selfishness,    some  magnetic  leader 


III.]  HELPING   GOD.  61 

to  come  and  shake  them  out  of  their  stony 
indifference.  Is  it  not  the  plain  and  sober 
truth,  that  the  great  folly  and  weakness  of 
many  people  called  Christian  is  their  depend- 
ing on  the  power  of  God  in  heaven  to  revive 
their  spiritual  life,  to  make  them  prayerful, 
brotherly,  earnest  in  doing  good,  before  they 
will  use  the  power  of  God  that  is  within  them 
— looking  to  Him  for  some  unrevealed  grace  to 
heal  their  dissensions,  to  inspire  their  ac- 
tivities, before  using  His  grace  that  is  at  hand 
in  their  own  tongues  and  knees  and  pocket- 
books — in  their  own  waterproofs  and  um- 
brellas? "  The  children  of  this  tvorlcl,"  said 
Christ,  "  are  iviser."  They  have  learned  to 
"  taJce  aioay  the  stoned 

There  is  also  a  question  which  common 
honesty  requires  every  sceptical  hearer  of  the 
Gospel  to  put  to  himself.  Is  the  Gospel 
argument  really  weak  ?  Is  Christ's  demonstra- 
tion of  God  and  the  way  of  life  really  inade- 
quate? Is  the  Bible  at  fault,  the  preaching 
off  the  track  of  truth,  the  faith  of  the  ages 
visionary,  the  Christ  Himself  a  dreamer  of 
unreahties?  Or  is  the  difticulty  in  my  own 
doorway,  a  stone  for  me  to  remove  that  the 
power  of  God's  truth  may  come  in?     This  is 


62  HELPING   GOD.  [ill. 

a  possibility  that  an  honest  mind  will  test. 
If  I  have  sought  after  God  in  vain  through 
the  speculations  of  the  intellect  alone,  I  will 
seek  Him  through  the  affections  of  the  heart 
also.  If  I  have  found  disappointment  in  look- 
ing to  Christians  for  truth  and  light,  I  will 
look  to  Him  who  is  "  the  Light  of  the  world," 
to  Christ  Himself.  Behind  the  stone  of  in- 
attention, or  personal  prejudice,  or  preoccupy- 
ing cares,  there  may  be  waiting  for  me  the 
power  of  a  divinely-quickened,  Christ-filled 
life.  I  am  bound  in  conscience  to  test  it,  and 
see  if  it  be  not  so.  Let  me  take  away  the 
stone.     Let  me  take  it  away  noio. 


IV. 

SPIBITUAL   BARBARISM. 


IV. 

SPIRITUAL    BABBABISM. 

"Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  yet  to  have  apprehended ;  hut 
one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  the  things  which  are  behind,  and 
stretching  forward  to  the  things  which  are  before,  I  p>ress  on 
toward  the  goal,  unto  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in 
Christ  Jesus.'" — Philippians  iii.  13,  14. 

The  secret  of  an  undecaying  life  Paul  tells 
us  in  this  notable  sentence  of  his  letter  to  his 
friends  in  Philippi.  He  never  allowed  himself 
to  think  he  was  doing  well  enough.  He  was 
always  trying  to  achieve  better,  always  study- 
ing how  to  improve  upon  himself.  He  was,  at 
the  time  he  wrote,  well  on  in  years.  His  life- 
work  was  nearly  done.  It  had  been  full  (^f 
toil,  full  of  triumph  in  his  chosen  career.  He 
was  now  at  the  point  where  men  are  wont  to 
look  back  rather  than  forward,  to  post  their 
books,  and  sit  down  to  what  they  find  their 

Preached  in  Anerlet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Evening,  August  12,  1888. 

5 


66  SPIRITUAL  BARBARISM.  [iV. 

net  gain.  Not  so  Paul.  As  long  as  he  lived 
he  purposed  to  live,  and  the  only  way  to  live 
w^as  to  grow,  to  blossom  and  bear  fresh  fruit 
even  in  old  age,  like  a  noble  tree,  however  many 
the  harvest  seasons  that  had  deposited  their 
ingatherings.  *'  I  count  not  myself  yet  to  have 
apprehended  " — to  have  grasped  and  gained  all  I 
may.  "Oiie  thing  I  do,  for  getting  the  things  which 
are  behind,  and  stretching  forward  to  the  things 
which  are  before,  I  press  on  toward  the  goal." 

Such  a  spirit  we  naturally  admire.  We 
admire  it  in  whatever  line  we  see  its  energies 
directed.  We  admire  it  in  the  veteran  states- 
man, whom  we  see  in  old  age  meeting  the 
fresh  exigencies  of  new  times  with  a  spirit 
whose  fertility  of  resource  and  whose  energy 
in  execution  are  still  marked  with  the  flush  of 
youthful  vigour.  We  admire  it  in  the  veteran 
missionary,  when  we  see  a  man  like  David 
Livingstone,  at  the  age  when  most  men  prize 
dearest  the  comforts  of  home,  setting  forth 
once  more  to  explore  the  dark  continent  be- 
yond the  reach  of  all  his  previous  journeys  in 
the  unflinching  pursuit  of  his  life-long  hope  to 
redeem  Africa  from  slavery.  AVe  admire  it  in 
the  veteran  student,  like  Charles  Darwin,  who, 
after  ransacking  the  globe  for  the  treasures  of 


IV.]  SPIKITUAL   BAEBARISM.  67 

natural  science,  and  making  for  himself  the 
foremost  name  in  the  century  as  an  investi- 
gator of  natural  laws,  devotes  the  evening  of 
his  long  and  laborious  day  to  patient  researches 
into  the  doings  of  so  humble  a  creature  as  the 
earth-worm  which  the  boy  impales  on  his  fish- 
hook, and  instructs  the  world  by  a  revelation 
of  the  wonders  that  lie  beneath  the  garden  soil. 
We  admire  it  in  the  great  Apostle,  who,  after 
introducing  the  Gospel  into  the  chief  cities  of 
Asia  and  Europe,  after  manifesting  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  in  profounder  thought  and  grander 
action  than  any  other  man  of  his  time,  sees 
more  that  is  still  to  be  done  and  learned  in  his 
divine  calling,  and  confesses  himself,  in  his 
grey  hairs,  still  a  learner,  a  runner  still  striving 
toward  the  goal. 

Yet  it  should  be  no  mere  barren  admiration 
that  we  feel,  fruitful  in  no  impulse,  as  when 
we  see  a  more  beautiful  face  or  a  more  stately 
form  than  Nature  has  given  us.  We  are  each 
conscious  of  an  appeal  which  such  examples 
make  to  a  power,  which,  in  latency  or  activity, 
we  all  possess.  Such  hves,  though  in  an 
inferior  way,  we  all  may  live.  In  so  living,  is 
the  divine  hope  of  the  ripely  developed,  normal, 
undecaying  life. 


68  SPIEITUAL  BARBARISM.  [iV. 

I.  Two  thoughts  are  here  at  once  suggested, 
so  obvious,  indeed,  that  it  is  mainly  for  the  sake 
of  their  less  obvious  applications  to  our  highest 
interests  that  they  need  to  be  impressed  upon 
our  minds. 

1.  The  first  is,  that  the  Apostle's  principle, 
in  the  Christian  life,  is  the  very  principle  which 
makes  the  civilised  man  distinct  from  the  bar- 
barian. The  characteristic  of  civilisation  is 
its  restless  progressiveness.  The  character- 
istic of  barbarism  is  its  supineness  and  stag- 
nation. 

The  civilising  man  has  his  time-worn  cara- 
van-track to  the  golden  Indies,  but  he  will 
have  one  directer  and  easier.  So  he  must 
launch  with  Columbus  on  the  frowning  Atlantic 
to  find  or  to  make  him  a  new  way.  He  has 
turnpikes  and  stage  coaches,  but  these  do  not 
■carry  him  fast  enough.  He  must  level  and 
tunnel  the  mountains,  and  lay  him  a  smooth 
pavement  of  iron,  and  harness  a  horse  of  fire 
to  his  rapid  car.  The  earth  yields  him  bread 
enough  to  eat,  and  live.  But  he  will  "  not  live 
b>j  bread  alone."  He  must  get  bread  enough 
to  buy  with  it  a  better  provided  life  than  that 
of  a  mere  bread- eater.  So  he  contrives  ploughs 
and  threshers  of  steam  to  make  the  arm  of  the 


IV.]  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  69 

farmer  equal  to  the  productive  power  of  the 
sun  and  the  field.  He  finds  the  pen  of  the 
copyist  too  slow  for  the  hunger  of  the  mind. 
So  he  contrives  the  types  and  cylinders  that 
scatter  libraries  over  a  continent  with  the  rays 
of  each  rising  sun. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  barbarian  is  distin- 
guished from  him  by  the  lack  of  all  effort,  all 
spirit  to  make  the  effort,  to  improve  the  condi- 
tion inherited  from  his  fathers.  He  is  content 
to  live  in  a  hut,  to  live  half-clothed  or  un- 
clothed, to  scratch  the  ground  with  a  stick  for 
a  plough,  to  trudge  on  foot  with  a  trail  for  a 
road  ; — not  only  to  take  the  world  as  he  finds 
it,  but  to  leave  it  as  he  found  it,  without  a 
thought  or  effort  to  better  anything  or  to  better 
himself,  except  in  excelling  his  fellows  in  their 
struggle  for  bare  existence  as  hunters  or 
warriors. 

Such  are  the  two  great  types  of  humanity 
which  the  world  exhibits.  But  let  us  reflect  that 
the  one  sort  do  not  all  Hve  in  countries  where 
civilisation  prevails.  Nor  do  the  other  sort  all 
live  in  lands  where  barbarism  is  dominant. 
Every  region  of  the  now  civilised  world  has 
risen  out  of  the  ocean  slime  of  barbarism  by 
the  uphfting  power  of  the  spirit  of  civilisation 


70  SPIRITUAL    BARBARISM.  [iV. 

in  its  elect  pioneers.  And  every  region  of  the 
civilised  world  still  retains  traces  more  or  less 
of  the  barbarism  out  of  which  it  once  emerged. 
We  see  the  primitive  barbarian  spirit  still, 
wherever  we  see  apathy  disbelieving  in  better- 
ment, stagnant  conservatism  resisting  improve- 
ment. Wherever  men  oppose  innovations  by 
saying,  "  What  was  good  enough  for  our  fathers 
is  good  enough  for  us  " — wherever  they  resist 
a  change  from  which  better  things  are  pro- 
mised, and  say,  "We  have  never  done  so 
before,"  they  revert,  however  unconsciously, 
yet  most  really,  to  the  barbarian  type  of 
thought,  which  says,  "  My  father  never  wore  a 
shirt,  and  why  should  I  undertake  to  be  better 
than  he?" 

Commonplace  as  these  observations  are, 
they  serve  to  direct  notice  to  what  is  too 
commonly  unobserved  in  ourselves.  None  the 
less  does  the  old  barbarian  strain  that  is  in 
our  blood  come  to  the  surface  when  a  man 
thinks  of  his  moral  condition,  and  says,  "  I 
am  as  good  as  the  average  of  my  neighbours  ; 
why  need  I  try  to  be  better  than  they  ?  "  The 
community  is  full  of  this  spiritual  barbarism. 
If  we  doubt  it,  facts  declare  it.  On  one  side 
see    the   restless    struggle   for   betterment   in 


IV.]  SPIRITUAL   BARBAPxISM.  71 

external  life,  so  characteristic  of  civilisation ; 
on  the  other,  in  respect  to  the  betterment  of 
the  inner  life,  see  the  contented  apathy  which 
characterises  the  barbarian,  men's  torpid 
satisfaction  with  the  existing  development 
in  themselves  of  truth  and  knowledge,  of 
righteousness  and  charity,  of  faith  in  God, 
and  brotherly  kindness  to  man,  and  moral 
likeness  to  Christ,  the  Divine  pattern  of 
humanity-  Such  a  state  of  mind,  if  we 
are  intent  on  reality,  and  mean  to  call 
things  by  their  right  names, — what  is  it 
but  spiritual  barbarism?  It  is  this  from 
which  a  man  must  be  saved,  or  he  is  not 
saved  with  Christ's  salvation,  according  to 
the  Gospel. 

2.  The  second  thought  which  the  Apostle's 
rule  of  life  suggests  is  this  :  a  rule  which  God 
has  made  fundamental  in  the  movement  of 
the  world,  we  must  make  fundamental  in 
individual  life.  "What  we  find  working  as  a 
law  of  God  in  history,  we  must  work  into  our 
own  biography. 

Look,  then,  at  the  world.  Contemplate 
collective  humanity  as  Pascal  described  it 
when  he  said,  "  The  entire  succession  of  men 
through  the  whole  course  of  ages  must  be  re- 


72'  SPIEITUAL  BAEBARISM.  [lV> 

garded  as  one  man,  always  living  and  inces- 
santly learning." 

What  more  comprehensive  sketch  of  the 
history  of  this  world-man  than  in  the  words 
into  which  Paul  condensed  his  own  biography  : 
^'Forgetting  the  ihings  which  are  behind,  and 
stretching  forward  to  the  things  lohich  are 
before,  I  press  on  toward'the  goal"  ?  Since  the 
day  when  primeval  man  first  lighted  a  fire 
to  boil  his  pot,  and  hollowed  out  his  first 
canoe  from  a  tree,  up  to  the  day  when  the 
latest  development  of  these  primitive  con- 
trivances in  combination  appears  in  the  steel 
hull  driven  by  the  steam-giant  across  three 
thousand  miles  of  ocean  in  a  week,  the  world 
has  never  rested  in  its  advance :  God  did  not 
intend  that  it  should  rest,  any  more  than  that 
a  growing  plant  should  rest. 

What  past  achievements  has  the  world 
made  and  forgotten  in  achieving  more  and 
better;  what  "lost  arts,"  as  we  call  them; 
that  wonderful  astronomy  of  Egypt,  able,  not- 
withstanding its  fundamental  misconceptions 
and  mathematical  inaccuracies,  to  compute 
eclipses  for  six  centuries  to  come  ;  that 
wondrous  engineering  of  Peru,  able  to  pierce 
the  Andes  for  five  hundred  miles  with  a  high- 


IV.]  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  73' 

way  surpassing  all  the  marvels  of  Eornan  road- 
builders  in  its  leaping  of  chasms  and  levelling 
of  cliffs  !  Again  and  again  it  would  seem  as  if 
the  men  of  Babylon  and  of  Memphis,  of  Athens 
and  of  Eome,  in  surveying  their  achievements, 
must  have  said  to  themselves  what  the  ancient 
navigators  said,  when  they  had  reached  the 
limit  where  the  land-locked  Mediterranean 
looks  out  through  its  Gibraltar  gate  upon  the 
shoreless  Atlantic  :  "  There  is  no  more  be- 
yond." 

More  modern  men  have  said  this ;  have 
prophesied  dire  results  to  come  of  beHeving  in 
more  beyond — from  setting  up  power-looms 
instead  of  hand-looms,  sewing  machines 
instead  of  needles  and  thimbles,  locomotives 
instead  of  coach-horses  ;  but  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion was  too  mighty  for  them.  There  were 
more  buds  and  blossoms  yet  in  the  tree  than 
men  had  seen  come  out  of  it.  The  world 
moved  on — such  was  the  Divine  spirit  within 
its  wheels — to  forget  the  things  that  were 
behind  in  stretching  forward  to  those  that 
were  before. 

Said  the  Popes  to  those  who  saw  a  purer 
Church  and  a  purer  truth  attainable,  "  There 
is  no  more  beyond,  except  the  fire,  for  such  as 


74  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  [iV. 

would  disturb  our  established  order."  Said  the 
English  kings  of  the  seventeenth  century  to 
the  uprising  spirit  of  liberty,  *'  There  is  no 
more  beyond,  except  the  prison  and  the 
scaffold,  for  such  as  question  what  we  have 
settled."  "  There  is  no  more  beyond,"  say  the 
theologians  of  the  seventeenth  century  who  are 
with  us  to  this  day,  '"'  except  proscription  for 
such  as  go  beyond  our  bounds."  But  still  the 
Church  moves  on  ;  the  world  moves  ;  the  things 
that  were  are  not  the  things  that  shall  be. 
There  is  far  more  beyond  than  we  have  seen  or 
■even  dreamed.  There  are  branches  to  spring 
from  the  ever-growing  tree  that  have  not  yet 
even  budded. 

Such  is  the  law  of  the  great  world-move- 
ment, Divinely  organised,  in  its  exhaustless 
power  of  unfolding  from  the  past  and  present 
•a  future  ever  better.  If  we  see  it,  we  should 
learn  from  it.  This  is  its  lesson.  The  law  of 
the  world-movement  is  also  the  Divine  law 
for  the  individual  life.  The  world-movement 
fulfils  the  law  of  ceaseless  progress  under  the 
impulse  of  the  Spirit  of  God;  no  mortal  life 
is  long  enough,  no  human  spirit  capacious 
enough,  to  rule  an  orbit  so  vast.  But  what 
God  works  in  the   great  whole  we  are  to  work 


IV.]  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  75 

in  our  part.  His  evident  purpose  of  more 
beyond  is  to  be  our  faith  for  aspiration  and 
pursuit,  our  rebuke  of  premature  contentment 
with  a  fraction  of  the  Divine  result.  He  in 
the  mass,  we  as  the  molecules  of  the  mass,  are 
to  be  of  one  mind,  ''forgetting  the  things  that 
are  beJiind,  stretching  forward  to  the  things  that 
are  before,  and  pressing  on  toward  the  goalT 

II.  From  thoughts  so  obvious  we  may  draw 
fresh  convictions  of  what  is  most  imperative 
for  the  realisation  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
capabilities  of  our  nature.  AVhile  we  derive 
inspirations  of  confidence  from  our  contem- 
plation of  the  grand  law  of  the  world's  un- 
ceasing progress,  must  we  not  see  that  this 
also  pronounces  a  stern  rebuke  upon  every  life 
that  is  not  in  harmony  with  this  law?  But  it 
is  hardly  worth  our  while  now  to  think  of  the 
ultra-conservatism  which  we  find  in  the  com- 
munity and  in  the  Church,  vainly  calling  the 
€ver-marching  columns  to  halt,  and  be  satis- 
fied with  the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  and 
daily  rations  of  the  manna  that  the  fathers  ate. 
There  is  a  pressing  personal  interest  for  every 
man  to  look  into  here. 

Since  "  criticism,  like  charity,  should  begin 
at   home,"    we  must  ask,   On  what  xDrinciple 


76  SPIEITUAL   BAKBAEISM.  [iV. 

is  our  personal  life  and  thought  conducted? 
So  far  as  relates  to  our  worldly  situation, 
it  is  on  the  principle  of  constant  endeavour 
for  betterment,  as  the  necessity  of  an  un- 
decaying  life.  Better  skill,  wiser  schemes, 
profit,  promotion,  advantage — every  one  of 
us  is  studying  for  these.  We  are  not  so 
content  with  what  we  have,  but  that  we 
believe  in  having  better,  and  try  to  have  it. 
How,  then,  about  the  far  more  important 
thing  ?  How  can  we  be  contented  with  what 
we  are,  how  not  believe  in  being  better  and 
try  to  be  it  in  ourselves?  Said  Saint  Augus- 
tine, "  Men  travel  far  to  chmb  high  moun- 
tains, to  observe  the  majesty  of  the  ocean,  to 
trace  the  source  of  rivers,  but  they  neglect 
themselves."  Our  adage  tells  us  that  "  man 
is  a  bundle  of  contradictions."  But  what 
greater  contradiction  than  endeavour  for 
betterment  in  fortune,  but  not  in  character  and 
life?  Let  us  not,  then,  think  censoriously  of 
any,  in  Church  or  State,  whom  we  see  indolently 
content  with  the  mouldy  bread  and  threadbare 
garments  of  a  bygone  time,  so  long  as  we  may 
suspect  the  same  faihng  in  ourselves — supine 
contentment  with  what  we  are  in  thought,  in 
spirit,  in  temper,  in  faith,  instead  of  aspiration 


IV.]  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  77 

after  that  which  we  should  be  and  can  be,  in 
hkeness  to  our  Master. 

Search  thine  own  hsart.     What  paineth  thee 
In  others,  in  thyself  may  be  ; 
All  dust  is  frail,  all  flesh  is  weak ; 
Be  thou  the  true  man  thou  dost  seek ! 

"  Oiie  thing  I  do,"  said  Paul.  Why  must  we 
-do  the  same  thing,  cultivating  moral  earnest- 
ness, cultivating  conscience,  cultivating  our 
sympathies  and  powers  of  doing  good,  culti- 
vating devoutness  and  faith  in  God,  cultivat- 
ing, in  a  word,  the  Christ-like  character,  in 
whose  satisfactions  is  the  fruit  of  "  the  tree  of 
life,"  the  repast  of  the  blessed  for  ever  ? 
Because  otherwise  our  life  runs  counter  to  the 
principle  which  the  advancing  world  obeys — 
false  to  nature,  false  to  itself,  false  to  God. 
Morally,  such  a  hfe  runs  in  the  line  run  by  the 
unimprovable  and  decaying  races  of  mankind, 
which  tend  to  run  out.  All  unimprovable  life 
must,  sooner  or  later,  run  out.  However 
broadly  stated,  it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  con- 
cerning anything  that  lives,  that,  where  the 
law  of  development  will  not  work,  the  law  of 
decay  and  dissolution  is  the  only  law  that  will. 
This,  then,  is  the  personal  concern  we 
have  with  God's  law  of  undecaying  and  pro- 


78  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM,  [iV. 

gressive  life,  which  we  see  emphasised  in  the 
contrast  between  civihsation  and  barbarism, 
manifested  in  the  world's  movement  as  the 
world's  organic  law,  and  insisted  on  in  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  as  the  law  of  spiritual  life, 
the  law  of  redemption  from  spiritual  death. 
To  work  with  it,  intelligently,  consistently, 
perseveringly  ;  as  we  use  it  in  external  things, 
so  using  it  inwardly,  in  the  endeavour  after  a 
true  development  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
self — this  is  the  one  thing  for  every  man  who 
thinks  upon  the  inner  and  central  realities 
of  life  to  set  himself  to  do.  In  this  one  thing 
is  involved  the  promise  of  the  utmost  that  God 
can  ever  bestow  upon  human  hope.  But  in- 
stead of  this,  how  many  there  are  who  indo- 
lently criticise  the  disposition  they  see  in  the 
community  and  in  the  Church  to  rest  con- 
tented with  the  past.  We  must  look  to  our- 
selves :  we  ourselves  are  too  contented  with 
our  own  past :  the  society  we  find  fault  with 
IS  made  up  of  such  as  we.  None  of  us  is  quite 
clear  of  failure  to  live  morally  according  to  the 
Divine  ground-law  of  the  world,  in  using  what 
is  good  as  only  a  stepping-stone  to  what  is 
better,  and  moral  gain  as  only  moral  capital 
for  increased  production. 


IV.]  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  71) 

Contemplate  the  runner  in  the  Greek  race- 
course, from  whom  Paul  borrowed  the  figure 
of  pressing  forward  to  the  goal,  to  whom  the 
goal  is  everything,  and  each  stride  toward  it, 
as  soon  as  taken,  nothing  in  comparison  with 
the  strides  that  still  intervene  between  him 
and  his  prize.  Look  at  the  machine  stamped 
with  the  date  of  half-a-dozen  different  patents- 
in  consecutive  years,  and  see  there  the  image 
of  the  dihgent  inventor  bent  on  ultimate 
excellence,  to  whom  each  improvement  makes 
a  stepping-stone  to  another  improvement,  and 
each  difficulty  mastered  gives  skill  to  master 
remaining  difficulty,  until  the  original  creative 
idea  is  rounded  out  in  a  consummate  instru- 
ment. Such  is  the  true  life  of  the  spirit  con- 
formed to  the  Divine  law  of  progress — not  a 
drift  but  a  race,  not  a  dream  but  a  study,  not 
self-contentment  but  self-criticism  and  self- 
improvement  with  the  eye  upon  the  Divine 
model,  and  constantly  saying  to  itself,  "  This 
one  tiling  I  do.'' 

The  great  reproach  of  Christianity  is  its 
passive  content  with  an  average  morality,  and 
a  life  devoid  of  aspiration  to  higher  levels — in 
a  word,  its  spiritual  barbarism,  stagnant, 
supine,   and  poor  in   power.     But  our  choice 


80  SPIRITUAL   BARBARISM.  [iV. 

lies  between  the  law  of  spiritual  development 
and  the  law  of  spiritual  decay.  No  other 
destiny  than  under  one  of  these  two  is  open 
to  us.  Therefore,  "  while  we  live  let  us  live." 
So,  indeed,  the  Roman  Epicurean  said.  His 
words  mean  much  or  little,  according  as  one's 
ideal  of  life  is  low  or  high.  And  so  the  same 
words  also  form  the  family  motto  of  the  pious 
Philip  Doddridge.  Let  them  be  our  motto, 
inspired  by  the  moral  earnestness  of  Dod- 
dridge, which  the  Epicurean  Horace  wholly 
lacked.  In  Jesus  behold  the  Divine  ideal  of 
life,  and  while  we  live  let  us  live,  "  the  disciple 
as  his  Master,  "  building  into  the  life  of  the 
spirit  ever  more  of  that  which  is  indestruc- 
tible by  the  years  which  bring  dimness  on  the 
ageing  eye,  and  weakness  on  the  ageing  hand. 
"  Ye  see  your  calling,  brethren."  Embrace 
it  as  "  the  high  calling  of  God,"  to  realise  ever 
more  of  the  ever  higher  and  better  which  lies 
ever  beyond. 


V. 

THE    MYSTERY    OF    EVIL. 


V. 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  EVIL. 

"I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness;  I  make  peace  and 
create  evil;  I  am  the  Lord  that  doeth  all  these  things." — 
Isaiah  xlv.  7. 

The  intelligence,  spread  before  us  yester- 
day, of  the  awful  calamity  by  whicli,  last 
Tuesday  morning,  while  we  were  at  our 
breakfast  tables,  more  than  a  hundred  fellow 
beings  were  suddenly  plunged  from  their  beds 
into  their  grave  in  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic, 
has  freshly  brought  before  us  the  constantly 
recurring  question,  which  vexes  men's  minds 
to-day  no  less  than  it  did  before  the  Old 
Testament  was  written — Whence  and  why  the 
evil  in  the  world  ? 

In  our  text  the  prophet  very  boldly  repre- 
sents God  as  asserting  His  responsibility  for 

Preached  in  Anerlet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Morning,  August  19,  1888. 


84  THE    MYSTEEY   OF   EVIL.  [v. 

the  existence  of  evil,  even  to  the  extent  of 
saying  that  He  is  the  author  of  evil :  "  I  create 
evil,  I,  the  Loed."  But  observe  that  evil  is  not 
the  same  as  sin.  Nowhere  is  sin  attributed  to 
God,  or  any  agency  in  bringing  it  to  pass. 
But  evil,  natural  evil — tempests,  floods,  earth- 
quakes, diseases,  fatalities  of  all  kinds,  and 
their  dire  results  to  human  life,  are  the  work 
of  God. 

Among  the  Eastern  people,  where  the  Jews 
at  that  time  resided  in  captivity,  the  prophet 
found  a  different  belief.  Evil  was  there  be- 
lieved to  be  the  work  of  a  malignant  deity, 
who  divided  the  control  of  things  with  the 
benevolent  deity.  In  that  theology  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world  was  a  two-headed  affair, 
shared  between  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  hostile 
deities,  who  ruled  on  contrary  principles,  and 
thwarted  each  other  all  they  could.  This 
old  Persian  dualism,  or  double  headship  of 
things,  has  worked  far  and  wide  in  thought, 
and  is  traceable  even  in  Christian  theology,  in 
which  the  devil  has  often  been  credited  with 
more  power  than  he  actually  wields.  The 
prophet,  however,  repudiates  that  way  of 
thinking,  and  ascribes  the  evil  of  the  world, 
as  well  as  the  good,  to  God.     This  is  not  so 


v.]  THE    MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  85 

short  and  easy  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty  of 
accounting  for  the  existence  of  evil,  but  it  will 
prove  more  satisfactory,  because  it  will  be  seen 
to  be  true. 

We  are  concerned  here  with  the  solution  of 
one  of  the  trying  mysteries  of  life.  In  the 
hour  of  pain,  sickness,  sorrow,  death,  our 
anguished  nerves  and  bleeding  hearts  make  us 
cry  out,  "  Why  should  we  be  smitten  ?  Whose 
hand  has  smitten  us?"  We  see  no  good 
cause  why  we  should  be  smitten.  We  see  no 
good  end  to  be  attained  by  our  being  smitten. 
It  is  natural,  as  many  of  the  heathen  creeds 
show,  to  attribute  our  suffering  to  some  wrath- 
ful or  malignant  power.  Many  of  our  neigh- 
bours so  attribute  it,  either  to  an  angry  God, 
or  to  a  mahcious  devil.  The  Bible  unhesita- 
tingly attributes  it  to  God,  but  is  careful  to 
remind  us  that  "  the  Loed  is  good  to  all,  and 
His  tender  inercies  are  over  all  His  ivorJcs." 
This  is  just  what  it  is  hard  for  some  to 
beheve,  and  we  need  to  see  strong  reason  for 
believing  it. 

What,  now,  is  more  difficult  to  prove,  than 
that  it  is  consistent  with  goodness  when  the 
one  bread-winner  is  taken  away  from  a  poor 
and  dependent  family,  or  when  the  mother  is 


86  THE    MYSTERY   OF  EVIL.  [v. 

taken  away  from  the  new-born  infant,  or  when 
men  perish  by  hundreds  on  the  sinking  ship, 
or  by  thousands  in  the  inundation  of  the  river 
valley  ?  We  cannot  readily  see  how  goodness 
is  at  all  active  in  such  events.  Least  of  all 
can  we  see  it  when  we  ourselves  are  the  suf- 
ferers. All  that  we  are  then  capable  of  is,  in 
our  calmer  moments,  to  think  our  way  to  the 
conclusion  that,  after  all,  perhaps  through  pro- 
cesses beyond  our  power  to  trace,  such  evils 
are  not  incompatible  with  a  general  scheme  or 
plan  for  all  things,  that  is  both  originated  and 
controlled  by  Infinite  Goodness.  This  is 
everywhere  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture, 
both  in  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New : 
^^  The  LoED  is  righteous  in  all  His  ivays"  ; 
"  Let  them  that  suffer  according  to  the  will  of 
God  commit  the  keeping  of  their  so2ils  to  Him 
in  ID  ell-doing  as  to  a  faithful  C7-eator." 

There  are  two  points,  a  right  view  of  which 
is  essential  to  our  getting  at  the  truth  of  the 
matter,  and  these  now  require  notice. 

1.  Death  is  not  in  itself  an  evil.  Simply 
because  it  is  as  common  and  as  natural  to  us 
as  sleep,  death  is  no  more  evil  in  itself  than 
sleep.  If  death  is  an  evil,  then  birth  is  an 
evil,  for  continual  birth  makes  continual  death 


v.]  THE   MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  87 

necessary,  if  there  is  to  be  any  such  thing  as 
equal  opportunities  in  the  world.  Each  must 
have  his  turn  at  the  table.  And  what  is  death 
but  a  birth  into  another  life?  That  to-day, 
with  all  its  advantages  and  enjoyments,  must 
end,  is  well,  for  it  is  succeeded  after  sleep  by 
another.  The  light  which  the  fact  of  a  day  to 
come  sheds  upon  the  end  of  this  day,  is  shed 
upon  the  end  of  this  life  by  the  fact  of  a  life  to 
come.  The  student,  at  the  end  of  his  college 
course,  parts  with  the  sincerest  regret  from  the 
college  world  he  has  found  so  pleasant,  and 
feels  many  a  pang  of  sadness  in  farewells  to 
cherished  friends  ;  but  in  the  larger  world  he 
goes  to  he  expects  and  finds  abundant  compen- 
sation. Immortality  transfigures — nay,  says 
Paul,  "  abolishes  "  death.     Says  our  poet : 

There  is  no  death ;  what  seems  so  is  transition. 

It  is,  said  Jesus,  but  a  "  sleep.''  Even  in  the 
case  of  the  wicked,  whom  it  introduces  to  evil 
beyond,  death  is  not  in  itself  an  evil,  any  more 
than  the  door  is  evil  through  which  any  wrong- 
doer passes  to  trial  or  to  imprisonment.  Dying 
is  simply  going  through  the  door  between  two 
worlds. 

2.  Suffering  is  evil,  but  is  worked  by  good- 


88  THE   MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  [v. 

ness  to  good  ends.  We  can  understand  that 
well  enough.  At  least,  we  know  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  wholesome  suffering,  and  we  do  not 
spare  inflicting  it  on  others  for  their  good. 
But,  we  ask,  Could  not  the  good  ends  have 
been  accomplished  without  the  evil  of  suffer- 
ing? Well,  put  the  question  home.  Could 
you  have  been  made  free  from  faults  and  follies 
without  suffering?  Experience,  both  of  our- 
selves and  others,  answers.  No.  What  the 
Bible  affirms,  in  a  certain  point,  of  Jesus,  must 
be  much  more  broadly  affirmed  of  every  man — 
"perfect  through  suffering  "  only. 

The  only  conceivable  way  of  dispensing  with 
suffering  is  to  dispense  with  imperfection. 
But  a  creation  in  which  there  is  nothing  im- 
perfect, but  everything  is  finished,  is  incon- 
ceivable. We  cannot  conceive  what  that  state 
of  things  would  be,  in  which  there  was  not 
only  no  infancy  and  childhood,  but  no  growth 
of  anything  ;  nothing  to  learn,  because  every- 
thing is  known,  and  nothing  to  do,  because 
everything  is  done.  The  only  sort  of  world 
open  to  our  minds  is  a  world  where  things  and 
men  are  forming,  growing,  learning  under 
training,  and  being  made  perfect  in  the  putting 
off  of  that  which  is  raw  and  the  putting  on  of 


v.]  THE    MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  89 

that  which  is  ripe,  through  processes  which 
naturally  involve  suffering. 

But  it  is  staggering  to  think  of  the  amount 
of  suffering  which  this  involves.  Perhaps  we 
may  think  that  it  might  have  been  largely  pre- 
vented, if  God  had  provided  better  instruction, 
had  had  guide-boards  set  up  to  show  the  right 
way,  and  thorn-hedges  to  close  up  wrong  ways. 
Well,  has  He  not  done  so  ?  Have  we  never 
known  people  to  take  the  wrong  way  in  spite 
of  wise  counsel,  and  to  take  it  again  and  again 
in  spite  of  bitter  experience?"  When,  in  so 
many  cases,  experience  fails,  and  suffering 
is  in  vain,  how  weak  would  any  softer  and 
smoother  discipline  have  proved  as  a  means  to 
good. 

What  we  have  to  admit,  then,  is,  that  suffer- 
ing, though  evil  in  itself,  is  a  means  to  good, 
and  is  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  goodness. 
Our  difficulty  is,  that  while  we  see  this  to  be 
true  to  a  certain  extent,  we  do  not  see  it  in 
every  case.  Nevertheless,  it  appears  true,  as 
far  as  we  are  able  to  trace  the  connection  of 
cause  and  effect.  What  is  the  most  reasonable 
conclusion  from  that  ?  Simply  this,  that  we 
should  see  the  same  if  we  were  able  to  see 
further.    What  is  true  so  far  as  we  know,  what 


90  THE    MYSTEEY   OF   EVIL.  [v. 

we  see  to  be  true  more  and  more,  the  more  we 
know,  is  probably  true  to  the  end. 

This  is  not  merely  an  inference  ;  facts  point 
that  way.  Plagues,  like  the  cholera,  were  long 
unaccountable,  except  as  a  mysterious  dispen- 
sation of  Providence.  What  good  end  they 
served  was  past  imagining.  They  have  been 
traced  to  their  cause  in  filthy  habits  of  living. 
When  this  stops,  the  plague  stops.  The 
benefit  of  the  plague  is  not  merely  in  enforcing 
the  laws  of  health,  and  thus  preventing  the 
suffering  that  comes  of  breaking  them.  It  is 
by  cleaner  living  to  produce  better  men,  not 
only  physically,  but  mentally  and  morally 
better.  For  it  is  not  so  easy  to  be  a  saint  on 
a  dung-heap,  or  a  philosopher  in  the  midst  of 
rot. 

Thus,  in  one  way  or  another,  we  shall  find 
that  the  agency  of  suffering,  through  various 
forms  of  evil,  is  to  produce  a  wiser,  stronger, 
purer  human  life.  So  far  as  we  can  trace  the 
connection  of  cause  and  effect,  suffering  plainly 
works  for  good.  But  if  we  cannot  in  many 
cases  trace  the  connection,  shall  we  then  deny 
it  ?  We  may,  indeed,  say :  I  do  not  see  the 
goodness  in  the  blizzard,  desolating  so  many 
homes,  in  the  river  flood  engulfing  thousands, 


v.]  THE    MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  91 

in  the  deaths  that  leave  parents  childless  and 
babes  orphans.  But  we  must  say  it  reverently, 
aware  that  there  are  more  facts  than  we  see, 
and  more  truth  than  we  know. 

It  is  not  in  our  times  that  doubt  has  first 
risen  against  either  the  sovereignty  or  the 
goodness  of  God  from  the  fact  that  so  much 
evil  is  in  the  world.  In  Isaiah's  time,  as  our 
text  shows,  men  doubted  God's  sovereignty  ; 
He  couldn't  help  it ;  the  evil  spirit  was  too 
strong.  But  we  can  no  longer  attribute  any 
such  alleged  defeat  of  God  either  to  the 
ancient  Ahriman  or  to  the  modern  devil. 
Science  has  come  to  the  aid  of  Christian 
thought  by  showing  that  one  law  rules 
throughout  creation  ;  that  gravitation  and 
light  are  uniform  in  their  action  on  the  earth 
and  on  the  stars. 

Again,  some  of  the  philosophers  of  Greece, 
with  Epicurus,  reasoned  thus  :  God  either 
would  prevent  evil  and  could  not :  in  which 
case  He  is  weak ;  or  He  could  prevent  it  and 
would  not;  in  which  case  He  is  mahgnant. 
But  this  we  see  would  depend  on  why  He 
would  not.  The  surgeon  hurts  the  child  in 
setting  a  broken  bone.  The  parent  can  pre- 
vent that  suffering,  but  will  not.     The  parent 


92  THE   MYSTEEY   OF  EVIL.  [v. 

is  therefore  malignant.  So  reasons  the  sceptic 
about  God.  But  if  the  evil  were  the  means  of 
good,  to  prevent  the  evil  would  be  malignant. 
Still,  it  is  hard  to  be  reasonable  in  our  suffer- 
ings. Job's  wife,  who  said  to  him,  "  Curse  God 
and  die,"  is  a  common  character.  Even  we, 
who  now,  in  this  calm  hour,  are  quite  easily- 
persuaded  that  evils  which  do  not  touch  us 
are  consistent  with  the  sovereignty  of  good- 
ness, may  find  our  philosophy  suddenly  melting 
in  the  flame  of  some  doubly-heated  furnace  of 
affliction  in  which  we  to-morrow  may  find 
ourselves  plunged.  Why  and  wherefore  over- 
whelmed, we  cannot  tell.  It  is  of  no  benefit 
to  ask  why.  Time  only  can  explain  that. 
Meanwhile,  what  are  we  to  do?  "Jesus 
answered  and  said  unto  them,  Have  faith  in 
God."  We  know  there  are  not  two  hands  on 
the  helm.  We  know  that  one  Sovereign  is  on 
the  throne.  We  know  that  all  His  works,  so 
soon  as  the  light  of  vision  falls  clear  and 
bright  upon  them,  are  seen  to  be  wise,  and 
just,  and  good.  This  should  be  enough  for  the 
emergency,  till  the  time  of  clear  sight  and 
calm  judgment  comes  again.  When  we  are 
thus  shut  up  to  the  alternative  of  believing  in 
God,  or  believing  in  a  blind  chance  or  fate,  or 


v.]  THE    MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  93 

a  malignant  devil,  we  have  reason  enough  to 
say  with  our  poet : — 

Yet,  in  the  maddening  maze  of  thingf. 
And  tossed  with  storm  and  flood, 

To  one  fixed  stake  my  spirit  clings ; 
I  know  that  God  is  good. 

I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 

Their  fronded  palms  in  air  ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 

Beyond  His  love  and  care. 

And  what  now  if  it  be  one  of  the  ends  for 
which  the  evil  is  appointed — to  educate  us  into 
this  trustful  faith  in  God?  Among  all  the 
varied  ends  of  goodness  which  it  may  serve, 
this,  surely,  is  not  the  least. 

It  is  certainly  a  pathetic  spectacle  which  is 
presented  by  the  introduction  upon  this  earth, 
amid  all  the  fierce  and  roaring  powers  of 
nature,  of  puny  and  tiny  man.  Contemplate 
him  in  his  primitive  condition,  as  he  comes 
into  being  on  the  planet  where  fire,  frost,  and 
flood,  tempest,  earthquake  and  volcano,  have 
been  battling  with  each  other  for  ages— burn- 
ing, rending,  blasting,  grinding,  till  they  have 
prepared  the  soil,  the  coal,  the  metals,  that 
are  to  serve  his  need.  And  what  is  he  but  an 
infant,  the  weakest  among  the  animal  tribes 


94  THE   MYSTERY   OF   EVIL.  [v. 

that  he  must  conquer  and  tame  ?  Surely,  by 
what  but  suffering  can  this  rudimentary  man 
become  perfected  man  ?  The  frost  must  spur 
him  to  clothe  himself,  the  tempest  to  house 
himself,  hunger  to  lay  up  food,  dangers  to 
cultivate  prudence  in  avoiding  and  courage  in 
overcoming.  The  very  pains  which  thus 
stimulate  his  powers  to  exercise  bring  pleasure 
in  that  exercise,  and  happiness  in  the  fruits 
of  exercise.  The  pleasures  of  civilised  life,  in 
all  their  variety  and  abundance  and  high 
refinement,  have  thus  come  to  exist  as  the 
fruit  of  pains,  which  spurred  humanity  toward 
higher  and  higher  levels.  In  the  light  of  such 
a  fact  suffering  is  manifestly  not  only  no  dis- 
proof, but  rather  proof  of  the  goodness  which 
thus  ordained. 

And  yet  one  may  ask.  Though  good  in  the 
remote  results,  and  good  for  those  in  whose 
days  the  slowly  ripening  fruit  matures,  is  it 
good  also  for  the  moment,  and  for  those  that 
are  planting  the  seed  ?  Are  the  earlier  and 
low-down  men  on  an  equality  of  benefit  in 
this  respect  with  the  later  and  high-up  men  ? 
We  must  say  that  they  are.  The  first  rude 
hut,  which  suffering  from  the  weather  forced 
the  primitive  savage  to  construct,  seemed  as 


v.]  TEE   MYSTERY   OF  EVIL,  95 

good  to  him  as  our  improved  dwellings  seem 
to  us.  In  such  comparisons  of  man  with 
man,  we  must  always  remember  that  "  the 
limit  of  nature  is  the  limit  of  enjoyment." 
Then,  again,  pain  equally  for  all  men  stands 
as  a  kindly  sentinel  to  warn  and  guard 
against  destructive  injuries.  Pain  is  the 
great  preservative  of  life,  whether  low  or 
high.  Furthermore,  whether  it  be  from 
apathy  or  from  fortitude,  the  ruder  tribes 
of  men  are  said  to  view  death  itself  with 
less  fear,  and  to  meet  it  with  more  calmness 
and  resignation  as  a  natural  thing,  than 
do  the  highly  civilised.  And  so,  whatever 
point  of  view  we  take,  we  find  not  only 
that  suffering  has  been  the  stimulus  to  the 
protecting  and  the  perfecting  of  life,  but 
also  that  in  all  grades  of  the  long  process 
its  agency  is  equally  benevolent  toward  all 
men. 

While,  then,  there  are  still  some  who 
think,  with  King  Alphonso  of  Castile,  that  if 
God  had  consulted  them  before  making  the 
world,  they  could  have  given  Him  some 
valuable  suggestions,  those  who  have  properly 
cultivated  that  valuable  branch  of  knowledge 
which   is    in    proper   acquaintance    with   our 


96  THE   MTSTEEY   OF  EVIL.  [v. 

own  ignorance,  will  be  disposed  to  admit 
whatever  truth  there  is  in  Pope's  familiar 
couplet : — 

In  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  reason's  spite. 
One  truth  is  clear,  whatever  is,  is  right. 

Two  French  astronomers  of  fame  have  as- 
serted that  they  could  have  placed  the  moon 
better,  so  that  it  should  always  be  seen  full.  But 
it  has  been  proved  that  the  consequence  of  this 
alleged  improvement  upon  God's  plan  would 
be,  *'that  the  moon  would  give  sixteen  times 
less  light  than  it  gives  now,  and  would  be  in 
constant  danger  of  extinction."  Truly  it  is 
better  to  have  some  dark  nights  every  month 
than  to  have  wise  astronomers  tinkering  at 
God's  arrangements. 

But,  indeed,  it  is  pathetic  and  saddening  to 
witness  the  struggle  of  feeble  man  with  the 
gigantic  powers  of  Nature.  Tragic  often  is 
his  fate  in  the  icy  grasp  of  the  frost-king,  in 
the  vortex  of  the  cyclone,  on  the  foundering 
ship.  "What  seeming  waste  of  life,  what  pro- 
fusion of  suffering !  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  has 
written  a  very  vigorous  indictment  of  Nature, 
as  more  remorseless  than  any  fiend  that  is 
known  to  history,  more  bloodthirsty  than  any 


v.]  THE    MYSTERY   OF    EVIL.  97 

whom  mankind  have  execrated  as  a  murderer, 
more  indifferent  to  human  suffering  than  any 
madman ;  from  which  he  concludes  that 
there  is  no  moral  spirit  animating  the  terrible 
giant  called  Nature.  The  rigour  of  Nature 
makes  it  hard  for  him  and  many  others  to 
believe  in  the  goodness  of  God.  These  great 
world-forces,  indeed,  rush  like  cannon-balls 
straight  to  their  end  without  heeding  what 
they  crush  in  their  path.  But  are  they  there- 
fore blind  ?  Are  they  uncontrolled  by  intelli- 
gence ?  Are  they  instruments  of  anything  but 
goodness?  Our  eyes  moisten  as  we  read  of 
the  children  frozen  by  the  bhzzard  on  their 
way  home  from  school,  of  the  light  vainly  set 
in  the  cottage  window  for  the  father  perishing 
within  a  rod  of  his  door.  But  if  this  is  not 
to  be,  what  is  the  alternative?  Supernatural 
interferences,  constantly  suspending  Nature's 
order  for  the  sake  of  those  that  are  in  the  way,, 
fitful  irregularity  in  place  of  that  steady 
invariableness  on  which  alone  we  are  able  to 
base  our  plans  and  proceedings  with  intelligent 
forethought.  A  world  so  regulated,  or  rather 
unregulated,  we  may  unhesitatingly  declare  a 
world  of  far  greater  and  worse  suffering  than 
any  which  results  from  the  strict  maintenance 


■98  THE    MYSTERY   OP   EVIL.  [V. 

of  any  established  order.  What  ?  says  the 
poet : 

Shall  trravitation  cease  when  you  go  by  ? 

What  ?  says  the  moralist :  Shall  not  men  be 
bound  under  sufficient  penalties  to  adjust 
themselves  obediently  to  all  laws?  Manifestly, 
it  is  every  way  better  to  be  obliged  under 
penalty  to  conform  to  Nature,  than  that 
Nature  should  be  forced  spasmodically  to 
conform  to  us. 

Here  the  familiar  story  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  of  New  England  is  in  point.  They 
arrived  on  the  American  coast  in  the  most 
unseasonable  time,  at  the  setting  in  of  winter. 
Their  exposures  and  hardships  consequently 
brought  on  a  fatal  sickness.  Before  their  first 
corn  was  planted  half  of  them  had  been  buried. 
Seldom  has  a  more  pathetic  tale  been  told 
than  that  of  these  poor,  pious  exiles — 

A  screen  of  leafless  branches 
Betwixt  them  and  the  blast. 

But  had  it  better  not  have  been  so  V  Is 
heroism  worth  so  little  that  there  had  better 
be  no  occasion  made  for  it  by  the  presence  of 
great    evils    calling    out   all   the   strength    of 


v.]  THE    MYSTERY    OF    EVIL.  99 

spirit  that  man  is  capable  of  ?  Who  can  tell 
how  much  that  terrible  suffering,  met  with 
such  loftiness  of  spirit,  has  been  worth  to  the 
world,  in  kindling  the  same  unquenchable  fire 
of  heroism  in  multitudes  of  admiring  be- 
holders ?  So  I  have  seen  it  stated,  and  with 
reason,  as  I  think,  that  the  vain  search  of 
Englishmen  for  a  north-west  passage  to  India 
around  the  frozen  extremity  of  the  American 
continent  was  worth  all  the  suffering  it  had 
caused,  for  the  heroic  qualities  of  human 
nature  which  it  had  displayed  for  the  admira- 
tion and  imitation  of  the  world.  Nor  is  it 
worth  this  for  the  spectators  only,  but  for  the 
actors  also.  What  the  fire  is  to  the  gold,  that 
is  suffering  to  the  character  ;  lessening  pride, 
developing  patience,  subduing  selfishness, 
drawing  forth  sympathy,  cultivating  the  trust- 
fulness of  the  saint,  and  the  strength  of  the 
hero.  The  noblest  and  purest  souls  have 
learned  to  say,  "'It  is  good  for  me  that  I  have 
been  afflicted." 

And  so  the  great  mystery  of  the  evil  in 
God's  world  requires  for  its  solution  a  right 
answer  to  the  supreme  question.  What  is  it 
that  we  are  to  be  intent  on  as  our  first  aim  ? 
Not  happiness,  surely.     In  the  midst  of  "  all 


100  THE    MTSTEEY   OF   EVIL.  [v. 

the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,"  it  is  plainly  not 
happiness  that  is  first  to  be  thought  of. 
Evidently  God  has  not  made  that  the  first 
thing.  And  it  is  a  proof  of  His  benevolence 
that  He  has  not.  For  happiness  for  the 
imperfect  means  content  v^ith  imperfection. 
Compare  balmy  India  v^ith  bleak  Scotland — 
lands  w^here  Nature  is  genial  and  bountiful 
with  lands  v^here  she  is  stern  and  stingy.  We 
find  man  at  his  best  where  Nature  is  very 
harsh  and  niggard.  It  often  is  as  our  hymn 
says,  "  Where  every  prospect  pleases,"  that 
"  only  man  is  vile."  It  is  from  those  that 
seek  happiness  first  that  the  cry  of  the 
pessimist  comes,  that  existence  itself  is  the 
supreme  evil.  Well  says  Carlyle :  "If  what 
thou  namest  happiness  be  our  true  aim,  then 
are  we  all  astray.  Behold  thou  art  fatherless, 
outcast,  and  the  universe  is — the  devil's." 
Perfection,  rather  than  happiness,  this  is  first ; 
in  order  to  this,  suffering ;  then,  in  proportion 
to  the  perfection  attained  thereby,  resulting 
blessedness. 

Nor  is  this  a  mere  opinion.  History 
has  manifestly  led  that  way.  The  facts  of 
long  observation  and  experience  point  that 
way.     Saints  and  heroes  there  are  not  many 


v.]  THE    MYSTEEY    OF    EVIL.  101 

yet,  but  more  than  there  were.  Better  grows 
the  breed  of  men.  The  whole  creation  still  is 
''groaning,''  as  Paul  declared,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  disciplinary  evil.  But,  after 
every  successful  struggle,  the  conquering 
Samson  finds  honey  in  the  carcase  of  the 
lion. 

But  whether  it  be  the  heathen  savage,  in 

whose  prehistoric  sepulchre  we  find  beside  the 

skeleton  the  bow  and  arrows  placed  there  for 

his  use  in  Elysian  hunting-grounds,  where  no 

foe  shall  hinder  his  chase  of  game  upon  the 

peaceful  hills,  or  whether  it  be  the  Christian 

philanthropist,  on  whose  monument  we  find 

sculptured  the  palm  and  crown  of  the  divinest 

victory,  we  read  everywhere  in  the  heart  of 

man  the  God-implanted  presage  of  a  coming 

life,  in  which  the  spirit,  schooled  by  suffering 

to  the   way  of  God,  is  appointed  to  the  full 

fruition  of  its  painfully  developed  energies,  and 

the  pains  of  training  are  forgotten  in  the  joyous 

exercise  of  perfected  powers.     It  was  in  the 

intuition  of  this  great  truth  that  one  appointed 

to  more  hardship  than  is  common  to  the  lot  of 

man  bore   his   testimony   to  the    ages    thus  : 

"  Our  light  affliction,  which  is  for  the  moment, 

loorketh  for  us  more  and  more  exceedingly  an 


102  THE    MYSTEEY   OF   EVIL.  [V. 

eternal  tveight  of  glory ;  while  ive  look  not  at 
the  things  ivhich  are  seen,  hut  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen :  for  the  things  which  are 
seen  are  temporal ;  hut  the  things  which  are  not 
seen  are  eternal." 


VI. 

THE   ASSURANCE   OF  IMMOBTALITY. 


VI. 

THE    ASSURANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY. 

"  I  lay  doivn  My  life,  that  I  may  take  it  again." — 
John  X.  17. 

In  these  words  of  Christ  we  find  a  thought  of 
the  highest  consequence  in  our  quest  for  certain 
proof  of  Hfe  after  death.  That  thought  is,  that 
in  the  very  yielding  up  of  hfe  with  such  a  pur- 
pose as  that  of  Jesus  there  is  a  certainty  that 
that  purpose  shall  attain  its  end  in  a  continued 
life.  Such  a  surrender  of  the  mortal  existence 
is  a  guarantee  of  receiving  the  immortal.  This 
is  not  at  first  sight  evident,  but  on  examination 
it  becomes  conclusively  certain. 

In  the  almost  daily  presence  of  death,  in  the 
absence  of  any  verifiable  communications  with 
departed  souls,  in  the  presence,  also,  of  more 
or  less  scepticism  on  the  part  of  neighbours  as 
to  the  reality  of  a  future  life,  one  of  our  most 

Pkeached  in  Anerley  Congkegational  Church, 
Sunday   Evening,  August  19,  1888. 


106        THE    ASSUEANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.       [VI. 

important  needs  is  to  establish  our  belief  in 
that  reality  upon  impregnable  foundations.  It 
is  the  grand  fact  as  to  which  it  concerns  us,  for 
the  moral  vigour  and  steadfastness  of  our  pre- 
sent life,  to  have  absolutely  no  doubt  at  all.  It 
is  well  if  we  have  found  rest  in  the  traditional 
belief.  It  is  better  if  we  have  by  our  own 
thought  made  that  belief  our  assurance,  and 
confirmed  our  confidence  by  personal  insight 
into  the  indubitableness  of  its  proof. 

There  are  moments  of  darkness  which  some- 
times blind  us,  especially  when  we  have  seen 
the  clods  fall  into  some  precious  grave.  In 
the  silent  vacancy  of  a  bereaved  life  we  some- 
times ask,  with  passionate  earnestness  :  "How 
do  I  know  that  the  one  who  never  will  come 
back  is  living  still?  "  Then  no  borrowed  belief, 
no  traditional  response,  will  meet  our  demand 
for  insight  into  the  secret  of  the  grave.  We 
must  see  for  ourselves  that  immortality  is  no 
mere  wish  and  hope,  no  mere  passionate  long- 
ing, but  an  assured  fact. 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  the  fact  on 
which  Christian  faith  is  generally  content  to 
rest  for  proof  of  immortality.  Thus  the  Apostles, 
the  eye-witnesses  of  that  fact, uniformly  argued. 
"■  If  we  believe  that  Jesus  died  and  rose  again, 


VI.]       THE    ASSUEANCE    OF   IMMOETALITY.        107 

even  so  them  also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  ivill  God 
hring  with  Him."  If  we  are  thus  convinced  it 
is  well ;  it  is  a  rock-built  faith. 

Still,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  many  are  not  thus 
convinced.  I  have  known  such.  They  would 
like  to  be  convinced,  but — they  say — can  any 
ancient  event  which  rests  on  historical  testi- 
mony alone  be  as  free  from  doubt  as  a  fact  like 
the  resurrection  should  be?  History — they 
say — often  misreports  facts.  How  can  we  be 
certain  that  it  has  not  misreported  this  ?  How 
is  it  to  be  proved  beyond  all  doubt,  that  the 
Apostles  really  saw  the  glorified  form  which 
they  thought  they  saw  ?  A  highly  educated 
man,  mourning  the  death  of  a  child,  thus 
writes  to  me  :  "I  wish  I  could  share  your 
assurance  of  a  resurrection  life.  But  a  mere 
wish  is  not  sufficient  for  a  rational  belief. 
Modern  learning  has  convicted  ancient  faith  of 
many  illusions.  How  can  we  be  sure  that  the 
twenty-fifth  century  will  not  thus  convict  the 
nineteenth  of  credulity  in  regard  to  the  resur- 
rection? " 

Such  inquiries  one  meets  to-day,  not  from 
mockers  but  from  earnest  seekers  for  a  convic- 
tion which,  could  they  attain  it,  they  would 
prize  as  the  light  of  life.     The  usual  historical 


108       THE   ASSUEANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.       [VI. 

argument — there  has  been  a  resurrection,  be- 
cause trustworthy  men  report  it — they  ask  us 
to  strengthen,  if  we  can,  because  historical 
testimony  to  past  events  is  always  open  to 
criticism,  and  they  want  a  proof  that  is  not 
thus  assailable,  that  holds  like  a  clinched  nail, 
not  a  mere  belief,  but  a  verified  certainty. 

The  Scripture  itself  respects  this  demand. 
While  the  Apostles  usually  argued  from  the 
historical  testimony  of  the  then  living  wit- 
nesses, they  argued  also  on  the  still  higher 
ground  of  psychological  necessity.  Peter,  in 
his  first  sermon,  says  that  God  raised  up  Jesus 
from  death,  "  because  it  was  not  possible  that 
He  should  be  holclen  by  it."  That  is,  the  very 
nature  of  Jesus'  life  made  His  resurrection 
necessary.  Now,  this  psychological  line  of 
thought  is  for  us  to  follow  to-day.  It  is  a  very 
simple  line  of  thought ;  the  only  hard  thing 
about  it,  if  any,  is  its  name.  Where  the  his- 
torical proof  asserts  only  what  has  been,  the 
psychological  proof  shows  what  must  be. 
While  the  historical  proof  deals  with  the  re- 
corded testimony  of  witnesses  who  cannot  be 
recalled  to  undergo  a  cross-examination,  the 
psychological  proof  deals  with  the  facts  of 
living  nature,  which  are  as  open  to  the  scrutiny 


VI.]       THE    ASSURANCE    OF    IMMORTALITY.        109 

of  reason  to-day  as  they  ever  were.  Among 
all  the  available  v^itnesses  for  the  resurrection, 
the  life  itself  v^hose  resurrection  is  in  question 
is  as  competent  a  witness  as  any,  and  is  en- 
titled to  speak  in  its  own  behalf.* 

Now,  however  content  we  be  with  the 
traditional  historical  proof,  as  well  we  may  be, 
we  shall  nevertheless  do  well  to  fortify  it.  An 
interest  so  vital  as  the  assurance  of  a  future 
life  is  not  to  be  suspended  on  a  single  line  of 
evidence,  where  more  is  near  at  hand.  A  hope 
so  precious  should  have  more  to  sustain  it 
than  a  belief  that  the  senses  of  the  witnesses 
to  an  isolated  and  unparalleled  event,  such  as 
Jesus'  resurrection,  were  not  deceived.  It 
should  also  have  the  farther  benefit  of  seeing 
that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  there  must  be  a 
resurrection;  that  what  the  history  records 
is  guaranteed  by  the  very  nature  of  the  life 
as  a  life  that  could  not  perish. 

*  The  tei'iu  "  resvirrection "  may  be  used  in  two  senses. 
It  may  denote  the  phenomenal  manifestation,  as  reported 
by  the  Evangelists,  or  it  may  denote  the  substantial  reality 
— the  rising  up  into  the  future  life  of  the  spirit.  It  is  with 
this  latter  sense  of  the  word  that  the  argument  here  given 
has  to  do.  Whoever  will  analyse  Jesus'  argimient  with 
the  Sadducees  upon  the  resurrection  wiU  see  that  He  uses 
resiu-rection  and  life  after  death  as  logically  equivalent  and 
convertible  terms. 


110       THE   ASSURANCE    OF    IMMORTALITY.       [VI. 

This,  then,  is  the  thought  which  we  find  in- 
volved in  Jesus'  saying  :  "  I  laij  down  My  life, 
that  I  may  take  it  again."  Death,  therefore, 
in  Jesus'  view,  is  not  a  destroyer  but  a  de- 
liverer. Life  is  preserved  by  the  surrender  of 
life.  Nay,  Jesus  adds,  emphatically,  that  it  is 
for  this  that  God  loves  Him,  because  He  gives 
life  as  the  price  of  life — the  highest  sacrifice 
for  the  highest  prize.  "  Therefore  doth  My 
Father  love  Me,  because  I  lay  down  My  life, 
that  I  may  take  it  again."  This  does  not 
mean  that  God  loves  him  merely  because  He 
dies  and  rises  again,  but  because,  in  the  way 
of  duty,  He  surrenders  life  in  order  to  preserve 
fife  ;  yields  the  lower  to  gain  the  higher,  pre- 
cisely as  He  bids  His  disciples  to  do:  "  if e 
that  loseth  his  life  in  this  world  for  My  sake, 
the  same  shall  save  it.''  The  thought  of  Jesus 
is,  that  death,  voluntarily  accepted  in  a  holy 
cause,  as  an  act  of  duty,  is  an  act  not  of  self- 
destruction,  but  of  self-preservation.  In  this 
idea  we  shall  find  the  demonstration  we  are  in 
search  of,  not  merely  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
rection, but  the  rational  necessity  of  it. 

Here,  then,  we  merely  lay  down  the  simple 
proposition  that  the  fundamental  instincts  of 
life  are  trustworthy.     This  is  all  that  we  need 


VI.]       THE   ASSURANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.        Ill 

take  for  granted  in  our  proof  of  immortality. 
AVe  have  perfect  right  to  assume  thus  much — 
that  Nature  is  truthful,  that  there  is  no  fraud 
or  imposture  in  the  constitution  of  things. 

Now  when  we  inqmre  what  instinct  is,  we 
touch  a  wonder  that  is  indeed  Divine.  We 
are  wont  to  think  of  the  instinctive  actions  of 
animals  as  of  lowly  origin,  mere  brute  and 
irrational  action.  There  could  be  no  greater 
mistake.  On  the  contrary,  the  action  of 
instinct  in  man  or  beast  is  the  immediate 
action  of  the  Universal  Mind  in  its  orderly 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends ;  instinctive 
action  is  Divine  action.  When  the  bee  builds 
its  six-sided  cells,  it  has  no  notion  of  geome- 
try, but  "  God  geometrises  "  in  the  bee.  The 
duckling  that  takes  to  the  water  does  so  not 
by  its  own  intelligence,  but  in  obedience  to 
the  intelligent  direction  of  the  Mind  which  so 
organised  its  nature.  When  God  is  repre- 
sented as  asking  Job,  "  Doth  the  hawk  fly  by 
thy  wisdom  and  stretch  her  wings  toicard  the 
south  ?"  it  is  implied  that  it  is  Divine  intelli- 
gence which  prompts  and  guides  the  annual 
migrations  of  the  birds.  The  instinctive 
action  by  which  the  lower  creatures,  as  soon  as 
born,   either  seek  their  food   or   avoid    their 


112        THE   ASSUEANCE    OF   IMMOETALITT.       [VI. 

natural  enemies,  is  intelligent,  but  it  is  not 
mere  animal  intelligence.  It  is  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  One  Mind  which  wisely  works  in 
all.  It  is  so  in  man  as  in  beast.  We  also 
have  our  instincts  as  well  as  our  reflecting 
reason.  When  we  act  from  purely  natural 
instinct,  it  is  not  merely  we,  but  God  acting 
in  us  in  advance  of  the  slower  action  of  our 
self-conscious  reason.  We  must  trust  our 
reason,  but  where  our  reason  is  unready  or 
insulBcient  we  must  trust  our  natural  instinct. 
In  all  that  is  perplexing  and  uncertain  we 
feel  that  in  trusting  our  nature — that  is, 
original  and  unspoiled  nature — we  rest  on 
truth  and  reality.  Now  this  fundamental 
faith — the  primal  necessity  of  our  life — forms 
the  bed-rock  on  which  an  impregnable  proof 
of  immortality  rests. 

There  is  nothing  that  all  trust  more  un- 
hesitatingly than  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion. In  the  action  of  this  instinct — sudden, 
unreflecting,  imperious — we  see  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  Author  of  our  life  exerting  itself 
for  the  continuance  of  life.  When  danger 
bursts  upon  us  like  a  lightning  flash,  we  do 
something  to  escape  it,  before  we  have  time 
to  think  what  is  best  to  do.     This  instinctive 


VI.]       THE   ASSURANCE    OF    IMMORTALITY.       113 

action  is  ours,  and  yet  not  ours  only,  but 
God's ;  the  action  of  the  Universal  Mind 
which  is  the  same  in  all.  In  this  instinctive 
^iction  there  is  both  a  testimony  and  a  dictate 
— a  testimony  that  Hfe  can  be  prolonged,  if 
we  can  make  the  necessary  effort;  and,  also, 
a  dictate  to  make  that  effort.  We  believe 
the  testimony,  we  act  upon  the  dictate,  we 
know  that  nature  is  truthful.  But,  now,  we 
have  to  notice  that  it  is  not  only  in  physical 
dangers,  amid  rushing  waters  or  falling  rocks, 
that  this  instinct  of  self-preservation  works — 
not  merely  to  save  our  bodies  from  wounds 
and  death. 

Wherever  conscience  is  developed,  wherever 
integrity,  purity,  honour,  truth  have  been 
wrought  into  life,  there  is  found  a  moral 
instinct,  whose  action  is  the  glory  of  humanity 
and  the  grand  wonder  of  the  world,  as  the 
action  of  Him  who  is  above  the  world.  It  is 
an  instinct  which  seeks  the  preservation  of 
our  moral  life,  just  as  the  corresponding 
animal  instinct  seeks  to  preserve  our  animal 
life.  Like  the  lower  instinct,  also,  the  higher 
instinct  gives  us  both  a  testimony  and  a  dictate 
— a  testimony  that  the  moral  life  can  be  pro- 
longed by  the   necessary  effort   and  sacrifice, 


114       THE   ASSURANCE   OF  IMMORTALITY.       [vi. 

and  a  dictate  to  make  that  effort  and  offer  that 
sacrifice. 

We  see  this  moral  instinct  impelhng  those 
whom  it  animates,  to  choose  death  rather  than 
hfe,  to  yield  the  shrinking  nerves  to  the  rack 
of  the  tormentor,  to  how  the  neck  to  the 
executioner's  axe,  to  surrender  the  living  flesh 
to  the  flames  of  martyrdom,  rather  than  to 
buy  life  with  one  word  of  treason  to  the 
dictate  of  conscience.  A  most  unique  and 
marvellous  phenomenon  this  appears  to  who- 
ever reflects  upon  it — this  willing,  nay,  joyous 
embrace  of  physical  death  as  the  deliverer  of 
the  moral  life.  Men  who  are  willing  to  live 
at  any  price  regard  it  as  sheer  folly,  fanatical 
madness,  preposterous  suicide.  Nor  could  we 
avoid  agreeing  with  them,  unless  we  were 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  Jesus'  saying:  "I 
lay  down  My  life,  that  I  may  take  it  again.'* 
Such,  then,  is  the  alternative  presented  to 
reason.  Either  the  moral  instinct  which  parts 
with  this  world  rather  than  part  with  truth, 
with  purity,  with  integrity,  with  a  good  con- 
science, is  an  utterly  irrational  and  treach- 
erous instinct,  throwing  away  everything  for 
an  utter  blank,  or  else  the  prize  it  struggles 
for  is   worth   the    price   it    pays ;    the   world 


VI.]       THE   ASSURANCE    OF    IMMORTALITY.        115 

it  aspires  to  is  as  real  as  the  world  it  sacri- 
fices. 

The  mere  statement  of  this  alternative  will 
carry  conviction  to  most  minds.     But  it  must 
in  reason  carry  conviction  to  all  minds.      And 
so  there  is  more  to  be  said.      The  question 
may   still    detain    a    few    cautious    thinkers,, 
whether  this  moral  instinct,  so  sublime  in  its 
self-devotion,  is  really,  as  we  view  it,  a  self- 
preserving  instinct.     That  it  preserves  some- 
thing,  there  can  be,    of  course,  no   question. 
Virtue     is   kept    alive    in    a    vicious    world  ; 
honour,   faith,    moral    heroism,    spread    from 
such  examples  by  a  sacred  contagion.      The 
sparks   from   the  martyrs'  burnings  kindle    a 
holy  flame  in  many  a  beholder's  soul.      What- 
ever these  heroic  victims  thought  worth   the 
keeping,  when  they  refused  to  keep  their  life, 
has,  indeed,  been  kept  aHve  and  propagated  in 
the  hving  world  by  their  laying  down  of  life. 
Not  utterly  bootless  their  deaths,  then,  in  any 
case.     But,  if  this  were  all,  they  were  not  self- 
preservers  but  self-destroyers.    If  this  were  all, 
they  died  as  rats  die,  in  whose  migrations  the 
bodies  of  some  fill  ditches  for  their  comrades 
to  march  over.      They  have,  indeed,  by  dying 
kept  virtue   ahve   in   others.      But   did   they 


116       THE    ASSURANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.       [VI. 

keep  their  own  viutne,  for  the  sake  of  which 
they  died,  any  longer  than  they  kept  their 
breath  ?  That  is  the  question.  Our  answer 
to  it  conies  from  the  moral  instinct  itself.  Our 
confidence  in  the  answer  rests  on  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  moral  instinct.  This  cannot 
he  false  unless  Nature  itself  is  a  liar,  and  there 
is  nothing  in  the  universe  which  we  can  trust 
as  absolute  truth. 

In  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  Sir  Thomas 
More,  the  foremost  Englishman  of  his  time, 
was  required  to  take  a  new  oath  of  allegiance, 
in  which  was  a  clause  affirming  that  the  King's 
divorce  from  Catherine,  his  first  queen,  was,  in 
a  religious  point  of  view,  valid.      This  More 
did  not  in  his  conscience  believe,  and  therefore 
declined  to  sully  his  conscience  by  swearing 
falsely.     For  his  refusal  he  was  brought  to  the 
scaffold  as  a  traitor  and  beheaded,  while  many 
of  his   fellow   Catholics  saved   themselves  by 
committing  perjury.    The  question  is,  whether 
More,  by  his   heroic    fidelity    to    conscience, 
merely  contributed  to  keep  integrity  alive  in 
other    men,    who    admired   his    example,    or 
whether,  beside  this,  he  kept  his  own  integ- 
rity alive,  although  his  body  perished. 

Let  us  imagine  a  modern  disbeliever  in  im- 


VI.]       THE    ASSURANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.        117 

mortality  arguing  with  More  to  persuade  him 
not  to  resolve  on  death. 

Your  integrity  is  dear  to  you,  Sir  Thomas, 
but  what  is  integrity?  It  is  only  a  refined 
sort  of  taste,  a  very  dehcate  physical  sensa- 
tion, as  much  a  part  of  bodily  nature  as  your 
preference  for  the  fragrance  of  a  rose.  If  you 
save  your  hfe  by  consenting  to  this  required 
perjury,  you  cannot,  of  course,  enjoy  your  in- 
tegrity as  you  have  hitherto.  But  that  will  be 
only  parting  with  one  sweet  odour,  you  will 
have  one  enjoyable  physical  sensation  less 
than  now.  And  this  you  can,  no  doubt,  make 
up  by  some  new  or  increased  enjoyment  in 
other  directions.  You  will,  of  course,  for  a 
time  feel  a  certain  disgust,  but  that  is  also  a 
wholly  physical  matter,  like  a  vile  smell  in  the 
nostrils,  and  this  you  will,  no  doubt,  be  able 
to  banish  in  time  by  various  agreeable  ex- 
pedients. Men  never  hesitate  to  sacrifice  a 
limb  or  an  eye  to  save  their  life,  and  your  in- 
tegrity is  a  mere  function  of  your  brain,  the 
same  as  your  sight.  Why  not  sacrifice  it  to 
the  royal  mandate  rather  than  take  it  to  the 
scaffold,  where  in  a  moment  you  will  lose  it 
and  everything  else  for  ever— all  your  fine  feel- 
ings and  what  you   call  conscience  vanishing 


118       THE    ASSUEANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.       [VI. 

utterly  at  the  fall  of  the  axe  in  the  last  breath 
that  gurgles  from  your  headless  trunk  ?  Nay, 
rather,  yield  as  others  yield,  keep  what 
you  can  of  life,  family,  friends,  enjoyments, 
honours,  for  many  years  to  come. 

Such  is  the  plea  with  which  a  denial  of  the 
immortal  life  of  the  spirit  re-enforces  the 
natural  instinct  of  the  throbbing  animal  life 
which  recoils  from  death  as  its  destroyer. 
And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  ghastly  terrors  in 
the  way,  in  spite  of  the  repugnance  of  a  sen- 
sitive nature  to  encounter  its  destroyer,  in 
spite  of  all  the  doubts  that  are  raised,  when, 
to  offset  the  visible  and  tangible  benefits  of 
continued  life  in  this  world,  there  is  nothing 
to  cast  into  the  opposite  scale  except  what 
is  invisible — a  simple  faith  and  hope  —  the 
self-preserving  instinct  of  the  moral  life  girds 
the  martyr  of  principle  with  an  invincible 
courage  to  lay  life  down  that  he  may  take  it 
again. 

Shall  any  thinking  man  here  say  that  there 
is  no  life  to  take  again  which  is  independent  of 
the  failing  heart-beat  ?  Did  More  keep  his 
integrity,  but  keep  no  life  of  integrity  ?  One 
can  say  so  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  reason  to 
absurdity.     Either  integrity  is  perishable,  or 


VI.]       THE   ASSURANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.        119 

the  life  to  which  integrity  belongs  is  imperish- 
able. 

But  what  stark  unreason  it  is,  to  say  that 
the  dictate  of  the  moral  instinct  of  our  nature, 
which  bids  us  to  part  with  life  for  the  keeping 
of  integrity,  is  less  rational  than  the  dictate  of 
the  physical  instinct,  which  bids  us  part  with 
integrity  for  the  keeping  of  life  !  And  when 
we  see  and  applaud  the  action  of  moral  heroes 
and  saints,  in  whom  the  self-preserving  in- 
stinct of  the  animal  life  is  met  and  overborne 
in  its  most  imperious  demands  by  the  self- 
preserving  instinct  of  the  moral  nature,  what 
blind  unreason,  again,  it  is,  to  say  that  the 
defeated  instinct  to  save  the  body  pointed  to  a 
substantial  advantage ;  but  the  conquering 
instinct  to  lay  life  down  to  take  it  again 
pointed  to  something  unsubstantial — a  mere 
shadow  and  illusion  !  Beyond  demonstration 
to  our  senses  as  is  the  life  to  be  taken  again, 
in  contrast  with  the  life  of  the  senses  which  is 
laid  down,  it  is  made  good  to  our  reason  as  an 
absolute  certainty  by  this  one  fact — that,  if 
there  were  no  such  life  to  come,  we  could  give 
no  rational  account  of  the  action  of  our  higher 
nature,  our  moral  instincts.  We  should  be 
forced  to  admit  that  the  noblest  part  of  human 


120        THE    ASSUEANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.       [VI. 

nature  is   the   most    deceptive   and  the  most 
irrational. 

When,  therefore,  Professor  Drummond,  with 
many  other  eminent  Christian  thinkers,  says 
that  immortahty  is  the  one  point  in  the  Chris- 
tian system  which  most  needs  verification  from 
without,  by  some  proof  of  an  external  sort,  we 
regret  it  as  a  most  incautious  and  unwarrant- 
able concession.  On  the  contrary,  we  are 
compelled  to  insist  that  the  exact  contrary  is 
the  only  true  statement.  We  have  to  believe 
in  the  life  which  we  have  not  seen,  simply 
because  it  is  a  necessity  of  reason  for  the 
rational  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of 
human  nature.  Similarly,  we  have  to  believe 
in  other  things  invisible,  because  they  are 
necessary  to  reason.  The  ether  which  fills  all 
space,  through  which  the  stars  move,  no  eye 
has  seen.  Yet  that  there  is  such  an  ether  is 
the  faith  of  science.  Why?  Because  the 
phenomena  of  light  can  be  explained  only  by 
the  existence  of  this  invisible  ether.  Such 
scientists  as  Professor  Tyndall  tell  us  we 
must  believe  it  to  be  a  reality,  because  it  is  a 
postulate  of  reason  for  the  rational  explanation 
of  the  action  of  light.  Precisely  on  this 
scientific    ground    of   rational    necessity    the 


VI.]        THE    ASSUEAKCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.        121 

doctrine  of  immortality  rests,  besides  the 
declaration  of  the  Scriptures.  The  evidence 
for  it  from  the  action  of  our  moral  nature  is 
so  convincing,  that  a  distinguished  writer  of 
the  last  century — Samuel  Clarke — declared 
that,  even  though  there  v^ere  no  other 
revelation,  it  could  not  be  gainsaid  or  doubted. 
In  just  this  point  we  can  also  appeal  to  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  names  of  modern  science. 
Says  Professor  Huxley :  "If  one  is  able  to 
make  good  the  assertion  that  his  theology 
rests  upon  valid  evidence  and  sound  reason- 
ing, such  theology  must  take  its  place  as  a 
part  of  science."  In  view  of  what  we  are 
thus  encouraged  to  claim  as  a  scientific  verifi- 
cation of  immortality,  w^e  may  now  quote  the 
remark  of  another  of  the  great  scientists  of 
our  time.  Said  Herbert  Spencer:  "How 
truly  its  central  position  is  impregnable, 
religion  has  never  adequately  realised." 

That  an  assurance  of  immortality  is  the 
central  necessity  of  religion  is  evident.  As 
there  is  no  progress  of  any  kind  without  self- 
denial,  as  there  is  no  self-denial  of  any  kind 
without  the  expectation  of  a  gain  to  over- 
balance the  sacrifice  ;  so  all  moral  progress, 
all  growth  of  virtue,  is  at  an  end,  if  there  is 


122       THE    ASSUEANCE    OF    IMMOETALITY.       [VI. 

■an  end  to  the  hope  of  hfe  to  be  taken  up 
when  this  hfe  is  laid  down. 

When  so  saying,  we  do  not  forget  the  splen- 
did instances  of  self-devotion  in  many,  who 
have  met  death  bravely  in  a  noble  cause  with- 
out the  sustaining  hope  of  a  life  to  come. 
But  in  these  we  see  that  gracious  provision  of 
God,  through  which,  when  reason  falters, 
instinct  takes  its  place.  In  such  instinctive 
heroism,  unsustained  by  conscious  reason,  we 
see  just  what  we  see  in  the  unreasoning 
sagacity  of  the  lower  animals.  It  is  the 
action  of  the  Universal  Mind,  intelligently 
working  in  the  bhndly  acting  creature. 

But  while  we  recognise  this,  we  see,  on  the 
other  hand,  what  history  shows  without 
exception.  No  human  virtue  has  ever  been 
able  to  propagate  itself  from  generation  to 
generation,  to  redeem  society  from  gravitation 
into  profligacy  and  moral  ruin,  or  to  make 
truth  and  righteousness  spread  in  the  world, 
apart  from  a  rational  conviction  of  the  life  to 
come.  Apart  from  that  conviction,  at  once 
awing  and  inspiring,  men  generally  act  upon 
the  maxim,  that  "  a  living  dog  is  better  than 
a  dead  liori,"  and  prefer  to  live  like  dogs  than 
to  die  hke  lions.     A  bound  is  set  to  the  power 


VI.]       THE   ASSURANCE    OF   IMMORTALITY.       123 

of  truth,  conscience,  duty,  by  any  suspicion 
that  the  grave  is  the  bound  which  is  set  to 
Hfe.  It  is  only  the  hand  of  Immortahty  that 
draws  aside  the  veil  which  this  world  casts 
over  the  face  of  God  as  our  Judge.  It  is  only 
the  foregleams  of  Eternity  which  cast  a  saving 
light  on  our  pathway,  so  beset  by  the  precipice 
and  the  pit.  This  kindly  Hght  God  has  im- 
planted as  the  central  instinct  of  our  souls. 
It  is  ours  to  cherish  as  His  most  precious 
gift  to  reason.  It  is  ours  to  follow  as  our 
most  precious  guide  to  the  Father's ,  blessing 
and  the  Father's  house. 


VII. 

THE  TRANSFIGURATION :  A  GLIMPSE 
OF  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD. 


VIT. 

THE    TRANSFIGURATION:     A     GLIMPSE 
OF    THE    UNSEEN    WORLD. 

"And  it  came  to  jpass,  about  eight  days  after  these  sayings. 
He  took  with  Him  Peter  and  John  and  James,  and  went  up  info 
the  mountain  to  pray.  And  as  He  was  praying,  the  fashion  of 
His  countenance  was  altered,  and  His  raiment  became  white  and 
dazzling.  And  behold,  there  talked  with  Him  two  men,  which 
were  Moses  and  Elijah  ;  who  appeared  in  glory,  and  spake  of 
His  decease  which  He  was  about  to  accomplish  at  Jerusalem. 
Now  Peter  and  they  that  were  with  Him  were  heavy  with  sleep  -. 
but  when  they  were  fully  awake,  they  saw  His  glory,  and  the 
two  men  that  stood  with  Him." — Luke  ix.  28 — 32. 

It  was  in  the  last  summer  which  our  Lord 
spent  in  His  earthly  ministry  that  the  event 
which  we  are  to  study  took  place.  Hardly 
nine  months  remained  in  which  to  finish  His 
work.  The  sky  was  dark  with  the  gathering 
of  the  storm  that  burst  on  the  day  of  the 
Crucifixion.      Such    a   time   our  Lord    chose 

Peeached  in  Aneelet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Morning,  August  26,  1888. 


128  THE    TRANSFIGURATION  :  [VII. 

for  His  coronation  week.  Withdrawing  from 
the  scene  of  strife  to  the  sources  of  the  Jordan 
at  the  foot  of  snowy  Hermon,  He  there  accepts 
the  crown  which  Peter  offered  in  confessing, 
"  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God,''  and  declares  that  truth  to  be  the  Eock 
on  which  His  Church  should  defy  the  powers 
of  destruction.  The  week  thus  ushered  in  is 
closed  with  the  Transfiguration,  when  Peter's 
confession  is  sealed  in  glory  by  the  Voice  from 
heaven:  ''This  is  My  beloved  Son  —  hear 
Him."  There  was  in  this  a  special  interest 
for  those  disciples,  and  there  is  a  special  but 
somewhat  different  interest  in  it  for  us. 

How  important  was  the  Transfiguration  just 
then  for  those  disciples  we  see  when  we  look 
at  the  weakness  of  one  man  against  a  multi- 
tude, of  twelve  men  against  the  world.  Peter 
had  indeed  confessed  to  the  outcast  Teacher, 
"  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  So7i  of  the  living 
God."  But  could  he  hold  himself  to  that 
against  the  world's  scorn  ?  Could  he  draw 
others  to  stand  with  him  in  his  flouted  faith  ? 
Especially  when  that  new-born  faith  was  to  be 
exposed  immediately  to  the  test  of  wintry 
rigours,  in  his  Master's  ignominious  and 
violent     execution     as     a     blasphemer     and 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE  OF   THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.      129 

deceiver  ?  No  ;  Peter  could  not  stand  to  such 
a  faith  in  the  Son  of  God  as  he  had  confessed, 
unless  he  had  some  supernatural  facts, 
divinely  strong,  to  stand  upon.  Some  such 
event  as  the  Transfiguration  was  a  moral 
necessity  to  him  in  his  case.  When  he  was 
opposed  by  the  cry  of  "  fables  "  he  falls  back 
on  the  facts  his  eyes  had  seen  and  his  ears 
had  heard  :  "  For  we  did  not  folloio  cunningly- 
devised  fables,  lohen  ice  made  knoivn  unto  you 
the  power  and  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
hut  we  tvere  eyewitnesses  of  His  majesty.  For 
He  received  from  God  the  Father  honour  and 
glory,  when  there  came  such  a  voice  to  Him  from 
the  excellent  glory.  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  to  ell  pleased  :  and  this  voice  we  our- 
selves heard  come  out  of  heaven  when  we  were 
with  Him  in  the  holy  mount."  Thus,  even  in 
his  old  age,  he  appeals  to  the  Transfiguration 
as  an  event  which  raised  his  faith  above  the 
possibility  of  doubt. 

But  if  the  interest  of  the  Transfiguration 
for  us  varies  from  what  it  may  have  been 
for  the  first  believers,  it  is  because  om-  stand- 
point varies  from  theirs.  If  they  looked 
upon  it  as  a  crown-jewel  which  proved  its 
possessor   to  be    a  Prince,  we,  knowing   the 


130  THE    TRANSFIGUEATION  :  [VII. 

Prince  from  other  evidence,  look  upon  it  as 
proved  to  be  a  genuine  crown-jewel  by  the 
princely  brow  on  which  it  glitters.  History 
has  shown  us  other  jewels,  other  transfigura- 
tions. What  we  call  by  pre-eminence  the 
Transfiguration,  was  simply  the  first,  the 
prophetic  one,  like  the  bright  star  that  first 
■comes  out  in  the  evening  sky  in  promise  of 
the  whole  train  of  constellations  that  are  to 
gild  the  dome  of  night.  The  transfigured  form 
of  the  outcast  Teacher,  as  He  prayed  alone  on 
the  mount,  was  prophetic  of  the  transfigured 
character  in  which  He  should  be  hailed  by  a 
converted  world  as  its  Saviour ;  prophetic  of 
the  transfigured  Cross,  which  from  an  emblem 
of  shame  was  to  become  from  its  connection 
with  Him  an  emblem  of  glory ;  prophetic, 
also,  of  the  transfiguration  which  His  Spirit 
should  work  upon  that  world ;  prophetic  of 
the  countless  transfigurations  of  individual 
souls  into  new  creatures  through  faith  in 
Him. 

Wonderful  as  was  that  lonely  scene  of  glory 
on  the  mount,  these  moral  and  spiritual  trans- 
figurations which  it  ushered  in  exceed  it  in 
glory  as  the  rising  sun  exceeds  the  morning 
■star.       In     the    undoubted    presence    of    the 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.      131 

greater  wonders  we  more   readily  accept  the 
less. 

But  while  for  Peter,  James,  and  John  the 
Transfigm^ation  scene  may  have  been  tem- 
porarily more  important  than  for  us,  as  a 
prophetic  revelation  of  the  glory  of  their 
Lord,  there  is  for  all  Christians  in  all  ages 
an  equal  preciousness  in  the  glimpse  it 
afforded  of  the  unseen  world.  Here  heaven 
and  earth  seem  very  near  each  other.  Here, 
in  the  glorified  forms  of  ancient  saints,  we 
have  a  vision  of  an  already  accomplished 
resurrection  and  judgment  of  the  dead. 
Here  "  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect  " 
show  some  knowledge  of  and  some  interest  in 
that  which  is  about  to  take  place  on  earth. 
Here  a  common  bond  unites  the  living  and  the 
dead.  That  bond  is  Christ  and  His  redeeming 
work.  Such  are  the  suggestions  which  natur- 
ally arise  from  the  record.  This,  then,  is  our 
present  concern,  to  review  the  record,  and 
gather  what  it  teaches  as  to  the  future  state. 

But  first  we  need  to  answer  those  who  ques- 
tion us  for  the  evidence  that  so  extraordinary 
an  event  was  no  dream  or  illusion,  but  an 
actual  objective  reality. 

The  answer  is  furnished  by  the  record  itself. 


132  THE   TEANSFIGUEATION  :  [VII- 

especially  by  the  points  which  "  Luke  the 
physician "  has  made.  It  would  seem  that 
Luke  has,  in  his  own  mind,  anticipated  the 
question,  and  that  he  has  followed  the  physi- 
cian's bent  in  noting  the  symptoms  which 
distinguish  a  reality  from  a  hallucination. 
From  him  we  learn  that  while  the  disciples 
kept  watch  beside  Jesus,  who  was  praying 
through  the  night,  they  had  become  drowsy, 
but  were  roused  into  full  wakefulness  by  the 
light  which  streamed  from  His  transfigured 
form.  Thus,  then,  they  did  not  witness  the 
beginning,  but  only  the  progress  and  close  of 
the  scene.  Thus  it  did  not  begin  in  their 
imaginations.  Furthermore,  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  occurred  unexpectedly,  as  dreams 
occur.  Jesus  evidently  expected  something 
significant,  for  He  took  with  Him  to  the  place 
those  three  Apostles  whom  on  other  occasions 
of  importance  He  chose  for  His  witnesses.  He 
evidently  intended  that  these  select  three 
should  witness  something  unusual.  How  they 
recognised  the  mysterious  visitors  of  their 
Master  and  the  subject  of  conversation  between 
Him  and  them,  we  are  not  informed,  but  may 
reasonably  suppose  that  Jesus  told  them  after- 
wards. 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.      133 

The  nearest  parallel  that  our  experience 
supplies  to  the  glimpse  into  the  unseen  world 
thus  given  to  those  disciples,  is  in  the  visions 
and  the  voices  that  some  in  dying  seem  to  see 
and  hear,  in  that  mysterious  border-land 
between  the  world  they  are  leaving  and  the 
world  they  are  entering.  This  subject  was  not 
long  ago  discussed  with  all  the  resources  of 
modern  science  in  a  work  on  "  Visions  "  by 
Dr.  Edward  H.  Clarke,  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  American  physicians.  His  con- 
clusion is  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  these 
visions  and  voices  are  the  product  of  the 
dying  brain  itself,  a  projection  of  impressions 
which  the  experiences  of  life  had  previously 
registered  in  that  organ  of  thought.  But  he 
records  some  cases  that  he  does  not  explain 
thus.  He  is  disposed  to  think,  from  facts  that 
have  come  under  his  study,  that  actual  glimpses 
of  the  world  beyond  our  senses  may  sometimes 
be  caught  by  those  who  are  approaching  it  ; — 
that  the  dying  may  sometimes  really  see  things 
external  to  themselves  which  their  attendants 
cannot  see.  Our  belief  in  the  sacred  record 
does  not  depend  on  such  supporting  testimony. 
Nevertheless,  we  recognise  the  support,  and  are 
grateful  for  it,  when  we  find  the    evangehst 


184  THE    TRANSFIGUEATION  :  [VII. 

and  the    scientist  bearing  witness  to  similar 
phenomena. 

1.  The  first  lesson,  then,  of  the  meeting  of 
Moses  and  Elijah  with  Jesus  on  the  holy 
mount,  is  this  :  The  invisible  world  is  very  near 
the  visible.  Seeing  it  makes  it  really  no 
nearer.  Not  seeing  it  makes  it  really  no 
farther  off.  Moses  and  Elijah  were  near  the 
disciples  before  the  disciples  saw  them.  They 
were  not  far  when  they  ceased  to  be  seen. 
Nor  now  are  they  far  from  earth. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  the  world  to 
which  the  dead  depart  is  in  any  remote  star  or 
planet,  or  that  their  unseen  mansions  are  any 
further  from  ours  than  one  part  of  this  globe 
is  from  another.  Said  Wordsworth,  in  his  re- 
nowned poem  upon  "  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality," 

Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy. 

I  prefer  to  say,  Heaven  lies  about  us  ever. 

Even  science  has  begun  to  talk  about  the 
"  unseen  universe,"  on  whose  blank  depths,  as 
they  seem  to  us,  the  world  that  is  seen  reposes 
like  a  wreath  of  vapour  on  the  bosom  of  the 
air.  Were  our  eyes  differently  made,  or  had 
we  more  of  the  power  which  some  abnormally 


VII.]      A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.      135 

constituted  persons  have  occasionally  exer- 
cised, of  seeing  otherwise  than  through  the 
lenses  of  the  eye,  we  should  be  made  sure  that 
heaven  is  as  near  earth  as  the  air,  through 
which  the  dragon-fly  skims  over  the  lake,  is  to 
the  water  in  which  the  fly  lived  when  he  was 
a  wriggling  grub.  Between  us  and  our  be- 
loved, who  have  crossed  the  mysterious 
threshold  into  the  next  room  of  our  Father's 
house,  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that  any 
great  distance  is  interposed,  but  only  the  thick 
curtain  of  a  dead  wall,  impervious  to  any  sight 
or  sound.  This  is  both  for  our  comfort  and 
for  our  health.  The  physical  and  mental  un- 
health  which  attends  the  attempts  of  spiritism 
at  commerce  with  the  dead  enforces  the  Old 
Testament  law  against  it  as  a  law  of  health, 
and  warns  us  to  permit  the  departed  to  depart 
— warns  us  to  respect  the  veil  that  God  has 
dropped  between,  yet  with  comfort  in  think- 
ing it  is  only  a  veil  and  only  for  a  time. 

2.  Another  thought  given  by  the  Transfigur- 
ation story  is  that  of  an  accomphshed  resurrec- 
tion. We  read  that  Elijah,  indeed,  had  been 
translated — without  death  and  burial,  while 
Moses  had  died  and  been  buried.  Yet  both 
appear  in  glorified  bodies,  as  in  the  resurrec- 


136  THE  transfiguration:  [vii. 

tion-state.  What  resurrection  can  we  con- 
ceive of  as  to  come  to  them  additional  to  this? 
And  if  they  had  risen  from  the  dead,  had  they 
alone?  We  cannot  so  think.  We  cannot 
admit  them  to  be  the  sole  exceptions  to  a 
nniversal  law.  We  cannot  think  of  them 
otherwise  than  as  the  representatives  of  an 
iiniumerable  choir  of  the  risen  and  glorified 
spirits  of  the  dead. 

In  so  saying  we  do  not  forget  that  the  New 
Testament  speaks  of  Christ  as  "  the  first-fruits 
of  them  that  slept."  But  we  are  not  to  under- 
stand by  this  that  Christ  was  the  first  who 
entered  into  the  resurrection-life  of  the  unseen 
world.  Eather,  that  Christ  is  the  first  who 
made  that  resurrection-life  a  certainty  to  us. 
He  first  cleared  up  the  mystery  of  the  state 
after  death,  first  established  the  reality  of 
the  glorified  life  in  the  spiritual  body.  His 
resurrection  first  settled  the  questions  as  to  the 
reality  of  that  life,  to  which  such  appearances 
as  that  of  Moses  and  Elijah  might  well  give 
rise.  Thus  He  is  to  us  "  the  first-fruits  "  of 
the  resurrection,  the  beginning  of  our  positive 
knowledge  of  it.  The  reality  of  it  existed 
before  He  showed  it.  His  showing  of  it  first 
showed  it  to  be  a  reality. 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD.      137 

What  our  birth  is  to  this  hfe,  that  is  our 
resurrection  to  the  next  hfe.  Not,  as  the  poet 
says — 

That  far  off,  Divine  event, 
To  -which  the  whole  creation  moves, 

but  as  the  Apostle  said,  "  to  every  man  in  his 
own  order,"  as  soon  as  he  drops  this  body. 
An  eminent  theologian  once  confessed  to  me 
that  he  should  so  believe  from  the  sayings  of 
Christ  were  it  not  for  some  things  that  Paul 
has  said.  But  the  Voice  that  spake  from  the 
cloud  directs  us  to  Jesus,  and  bids  us  "  hear 
Him."  The  Jewish  belief  was  of  a  remoter 
resurrection,  at  some  world's  end,  as  Martha 
thought.  Traces  of  this  old  way  of  thinldng 
colour  some  of  Paul's  sayings.  Again  we  find 
him  rising  to  the  higher  thought  which  he  had 
learned  of  Christ.  The  Christian  truth,  if  we 
can  receive  it  from  the  lips  of  the  Master 
rather  than  from  His  interpreters,  is  that  of 
an  immediate  resurrection — a  truth  of  such 
precious  consolation  that  we  should  be  loth  to 
forego  it. 

With  this  fact  of  an  accomplished  resur- 
rection goes  the  corresponding  fact  of  an  ac- 
complished judgment.     Moses  and  Elijah  have 


138  THE   TRANSFIGURATION  :  [VII. 

evidently  entered  into  the  blessed  fruits  of  a 
godly  life  upon  earth.  Their  judgment  is  thus 
as  complete,  with  reference  to  "  the  deeds  done 
in  the  body,"  as  it  can  ever  be.  But  if  theirs 
is  so,  we  cannot  suppose  theirs  alone  to  be  so, 
or  regard  them  as  exceptions  to  a  general  law. 
The  moment  we  put  aside,  as  unworthy  of 
belief,  the  notion  of  an  unconscious  sleep,  or  a 
chrysalis-state  of  all  the  dead  till  the  advent  of 
some  "  last  day,"  when  all  at  once  awake  and 
rise,  we  also  have  to  put  aside  the  twin  notion 
of  a  judgment  delayed  till  the  end  of  time,  and 
then  taking  place  for  all  together.  Our  courts 
sit  for  a  time  and  then  rise.  The  Divine  judg- 
ment belongs  to  no  one  time,  but  continues 
through  all  time.  It  is  not  an  event  assigned 
to  a  particular  date  in  the  calendar,  but  a  pro- 
cess as  uninterrupted  as  the  activity  of  God, 
and  as  eternal  as  the  operation  of  His  law — 
"  eternal  judgment,"  says  the  Scripture.  We 
think  differently  only  when  we  mistakenly  in- 
terpret the  figures  and  pictures  of  Scripture  in 
a  literal  and  mechanical  way.  When  we  die 
out  of  this  life,  we  rise  into  another,  and  in 
that  rising  we  experience  our  judgment,  as  we 
enter  on  our  inheritance  of  good  or  evil,  in 
reaping  whatsoever  we  have  sown. 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  UNSEEN  WOELD.      139 

3.  But  next,  a  lesson  of  precious  import  is 
given  by  the  appearance  of  Moses  and  Elijah 
together  in  the  resurrection-state  of  glory. 

Moses    and    Elijah    were    men    separated 
from    each    other    in   history    by    long    cen- 
turies ;  they  were  separated,  too,  by  marked 
diversity  of  character    more   widely    still ; — 
Moses,   the   erudite  scholar    and    philosophic 
law  giver,  Elijah,  the  unlettered  hermit    and 
rude   reformer,    whose    greatness    lay  in   his 
austere  uprightness  and  fiery  zeal.      But  here 
these  men,  so  separate  in  time,  so  unlike  in 
character,  appear  together  in  the  resurrection- 
glory,  with  Jesus  as  their  bond  of  union,  and 
their  conversation  centres  on  His  cross-bearing 
mission  to  redeem  mankind.      In  this  we  have 
a  glimpse  of  that  blessed  society  of  the  good  of 
all  ages,  which  the  New  Testament  calls  "  the 
City  of  God,"  into  which  the  godly  are  ever 
entering   through   the   resurrection-gate.      In 
this  society  the  bond  of  sympathy  is  that  com- 
mon interest  in  Christ  and  the  work  of  Christ 
in  which  the  ancient  sage  is  a  brother  to  the 
modern  missionary,   and  in    which  all  earthly 
diversities   melt  in  the  glow  of  desires  alike 
engaging  all. 

4.  We  may  also  learn  another  thing.     The 


140  THE    TRANSFIGURATION  :  [VII. 

disciples  found   their   own   interest    in    their 
Master's  coming  death  shared  by  Moses  and 
Ehjah  in  conference  with  Jesus.     They  saw 
the   glorified    dead   exhibiting  an   interest  in 
that  which  interested   their  friends  on  earth. 
The  subject  of  their  interest   was  an  eventful 
crisis   in   God's  redeeming  work.     Moses  and 
Elijah  were  seen  conversing  with  Jesus  about 
His  death.     That  they  were  there  doing  it,  is 
a  sign  that  they  came  there  to  do  it.     That 
they  were  there  talking  of  it,   is   a  sign  that 
they  had  been  thinking  of  it  before,  and  would 
think  of  it  afterwards.     That  they  were  thus 
interested,  is  a  sign  that  more  than  they  were 
interested — that  the  whole  society  of  kindred 
spirits  to   which   they  belonged  thought  with 
them  on  the  great  event  on   which  the  talk 
of  these   two  with  Jesus  turned.     This    fact, 
that  the  death  of  Jesus  at  Jerusalem  was   so 
evidently  a  matter  of  knowledge  and  interest 
to  the  glorified  dead,  is  therefore  a  sign  that 
events  of  a  similar  kind — all  events  that  have 
to  do  with  the  advancement  of  God's  kingdom 
on  earth — are  matters  of  similar    knowledge 
and    interest    to    the    heavenly    community. 
The  career  of  a  Luther  reforming  religion,  the 
sailing  of  pious  Pilgrims  to  plant  Christianity 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE   OF  THE  UNSEEN  WORLD,      141 

in  a  new  world,  the  abolition  of  accursed  evils 
like  slavery  and  intemperance,  the  institution 
of  Christian  missions  and  Christian  charities, 
and — not  less  —  those  so-called  "secular 
events "  that  mightily  promote  truth  and 
brotherhood,  like  the  introduction  of  the 
printing  press,  the  opening  of  electric  com- 
munications— in  a  word,  all  earthly  move- 
ments that  have  to  do  with  the  development 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  among  men,  we 
may  believe  to  be  now  matters  of  knowledge 
and  interest  among  those  who  have  gone  up 
through  the  death-gate  into  the  higher  ranges 
of  the  service  of  God. 

And  if  we  may  believe  that  so  much  as  this 
concerning  earthly  affairs  is  a  matter  of  know- 
ledge and  of  interest  to  the  blessed  dead,  we 
must  in  consistency  believe  that  even  more 
may  be.  If  Luther's  grand  struggle  against 
anti-Christian  power  may  engage  the  minds 
of  glorified  spirits,  equally  may  the  struggle  of 
the  same  Luther,  when  a  little  boy,  to  earn 
his  bread.  The  great  and "  little  things  so 
interpenetrate  and  connect  with  each  other, 
as  inseparable  parts  of  one  grand  movement, 
that  if  the  one  is  known  on  high,  the  other 
is  probably  known  in  its  relation  to  it. 


142  THE    TRANSFIGURATION  :  [Vll. 

Some,  I  know,  draw  back  from  such  a 
thought.  A  great  poet  thus  utters  the  com- 
mon fear : 

Do  we  indeed  desire  the  dead 

Should  still  be  near  tis  at  our  side  ? 
Is  there  no  meanness  we  would  hide  ? 

No  inner  vileness  that  we  dread  ? 

Can  the  blessedness  of  the  dead  be  unim- 
paired, if  they  witness  so  much  of  wretched- 
ness, so  much  of  wickedness,  in  their  beloved  ? 
It  is  a  worthier  view  to  take,  that  their 
bliss  does  not  depend  on  their  ignorance, 
but  on  their  faith  in  the  God  to  whom  all 
souls  belong,  and  on  their  faith  in  His  pro- 
cesses of  salvation.  How  much  their  know- 
ledge of  earthly  things  involves,  we  cannot 
tell.  Whether  it  involves  an  invisible  ministry 
as  well  as  an  invisible  sympathy,  we  cannot 
tell.  But  it  is  a  precious  assurance  to  be 
drawn  from  this  history,  that  there  is  at  least 
an  intelligent  sympathy  which  unites  those 
who  have  passed  into  the  heavens  with  those 
who  continue  upon  earth.  As  our  great  poet 
has  said  : — 

they  do  not  die. 
Nor  lose  their  mortal  sympathy. 
Nor  change  to  us,  although  they  change. 


i 


VII.]     A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE   UNSEEN  WORLD.      143 

What  a  glorious  fellowship  is  then  the 
privilege  of  the  humblest  or  obscurest  servant 
of  the  King  !  The  world  may  care  little  for 
what  he  is  doing.  But  the  great  object  of  his 
endeavour  is  an  object  of  interest  to  glorified 
spirits.  The  cheering  thoughts  that  swell  in 
at  times  upon  his  soul  with  refreshing  tides  of 
inspiration  are  not  his  alone,  but  his  in  part- 
nership with  the  invisible  brotherhood,  who 
think  and  feel  and  strive  with  him. 

"  Therefore  let  us  also,  seeing  loe  are  com- 
passed about  with  so  great  a  cloud  of  loitnesses, 
lay  aside  every  toeight,  and  the  sin  which  doth 
so  easily  beset  us,  and  let  us  run  loith  patience 
the  race  that  is  set  before  us,  looking  unto 
Jesus,  the  Author  and  Perfecter  of  our  faiths 

We  have  to  ask,  then,  as  we  lay  down  this 
theme  :  What  present  sympathy  have  we  with 
this  heavenly  fellowship  of  thought  and  hope 
of  which  we  have  had  a  glimpse  on  the  holy 
mount  ?  Is  the  main  interest  of  our  present 
life  the  same  as  theirs — the  advancement  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  the  accomphshment  of 
the  world's  deliverance  from  the  sin  and  evil 
under  which  it  groans  ?  Or  is  it  an  alien 
interest,  a  lower  interest — our  self-aggrandise- 
ment only,  in  personal  profits  and  pleasures  ? 


144  THE    TRANSFIGURATION.  [VII. 

On  this  depends  our  destiny  to  the  higher  or 
the  lower  ranges  of  the  future  hfe.  On  this  it 
depends  whether  our  future  fellowship  be 
glorious  or  inglorious — with  the  covetous,  the 
selfish,  the  ungodly,  or  with  Moses  and  Elijah, 
with  Peter  and  Paul,  with  Him  who  is  the 
Divine  Centre  and  Bond  of  all  those,  in  all 
ages  and  in  both  worlds,  whose  hopes  of 
blessedness  are  bound  up  with  the  triumph  of 
Truth  and  Eighteousness  and  Love  in  a  per- 
fected humanity,  in  a  regenerated  world. 


VIII. 
IS  DECEPTION  EVER    A    DUTY 


10 


VIII. 

IS  DECEPTION  EVER  A  DUTY? 

"And  Elisha  said  unto  them,  This  is  not  the  way,  neither  is 
this  the  city  :  folloio  me,  and  I  ivill  bring  you  to  the  man  whom 
ye  seek.     But  he  led  them  to  Samaria." — 2  Kings  vi,  19. 

This  text  records  the  deception  of  an  armed 
enemy  by  the  prophet  Ehsha — a  falsehood  in 
the  mouth  of  a  good  man.  It  introduces  us  to 
a  subject  of  great  importance,  the  question 
whether  deception  is  ever  a  duty. 

We  have  to  observe— 

I.  There  are  two  distinct  grounds  on  which 
the  duty  of  truthfulness  is  placed  in  the  Bible. 

1.  That  of  social  expediency.  Truthfulness 
is  essential  to  the  order  and  peace  of  society. 
A  society  in  which  falsehood  was  the  rule 
would  be  in  a  state  of  discord  tending  to 
•a    state    of   war.       Therefore  we    have    this 

Preached  in  Aneelet  Congregational  Chapel, 
Sunday  Evening,  August  26,  1888. 


148  IS  DECEPTION   EVER   A  DUTY?         [VIII. 

precept :  "  Speak  ye  truth  each  one  with 
Ms  neighbour,  for  we  are  members  one  of 
another.'" 

2.  That  of  personal  obligation  to  conform  to 
the  Divine  character.  God  is  the  Being  of 
perfect  truth.  Personal  truthfulness  patterned 
after  God's  truthfulness  is  one  of  those 
qualities  in  which  a  man  owes  it  both  to  him- 
self and  to  his  Maker  to  be  godhke.  There- 
fore we  have  this  precept :  "  Lie  not  one  to 
another ;  seeing  that  ye  have  put  off  the  old 
man  with  his  doings,  and  have  put  on  the  neio 
man,  which  is  being  renewed  unto  knowledge 
after  the  image  of  Him  that  created  him." 

These  two  principles  are  at  bottom  one.  It 
is  socially  expedient  that  men  should  be  god- 
like in  truth.  In  view  of  this  men  ask :  Are 
we  ever  justified  in  deviating  from  absolute 
truthfulness  in  our  intercourse  with  one 
another  ? 

From  Saint  Augustine  down  to  recent 
times,  this  question  has  been  answered  in  the 
negative  by  moralists  who  take  the  same 
ground  as  to  falsehood  that  the  Quakers  take 
as  to  war.  On  the  other  hand,  such  men  as 
Jeremy  Taylor,  Milton,  and  Paley  would  allow 
exceptions.     Opinions  are  still  divided.     It  is 


YIII.]         IS    DECEPTION   EVER    A   DUTY?  149 

a  vexed  question  of  constant  recurrence.  We 
ought  to  form  a  clear  judgment  in  order  to 
keep  a  clear  conscience. 

There  is  one  guiding  thought  which  goes  far 
to  helx^  us  to  right  conclusions.  It  is  this  :  In 
any  supposable  circumstances,  the  supreme 
question  never  can  be,  What  is  not  my 
duty?  but  ever  and  only  the  positive  in- 
quiry, What  is  my  duty?  Consequently 
we  are  not  to  ask  simply,  Are  we  ever 
justified  in  deviating  from  absolute  truth  ? 
Put  the  question  in  that  form,  and  you  open 
the  door  to  an  excuse-making  disposition,  to 
all  sorts  of  pleas  from  a  self-indulgent  spirit, 
slack  and  indifferent  to  moral  effort ;  it  ex- 
poses us  to  imagine  that  the  claims  of  duty 
may  sometimes  be  relaxed.  The  claims  of 
duty  are  never  relaxed.  If  there  be  a  suppos- 
able case  in  which  we  may  utter  what  is  not 
perfectly  true,  it  can  only  be  a  case  in  which 
such  a  course  is  the  course  of  duty.  The 
only  proper  form,  then,  in  which  the  present 
question  is  to  be  put,  is  this  :  Is  it  ever  our 
duty  to  utter  what  is  not  perfectly  true  ?  Are 
there  cases  in  which  it  would  not  be  right  for 
us,  under  the  circumstances,  to  say  what  is 
perfectly  true  ? 


150  IS   DECEPTION   EVEE   A   DUTY?         [VIIl . 

II.  We  have  now  to  notice  that  the  question 
before  us  belongs  to  a  large  class  of  questions 
which  depend  for  their  adjustment  upon  a 
general  principle. 

This  class  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  "  con- 
flicting duties " ;  more  properly,  conflicting 
claims  to  duty,  since  duty  in  any  case  can  lie 
only  in  one  direction. 

For  instance,  the  claim  of  a  man's  family 
that  he  shall  give  his  time  to  their  support  is 
overborne  by  the  counter-claim  of  society  that 
he  shall  give  up  his  business  to  serve  for  weeks 
on  a  jury.  A  man's  claim  that  his  right  to  his 
own  property  shall  be  inviolate  is  met  by  the 
superior  claim  of  society  to  take  enough  of 
that  property  away  from  him  to  lay  out  a  rail- 
way. The  claim  of  human  life  to  be  held 
sacred  is  met  by  the  paramount  claim  of  self- 
preservation  against  the  burglar  whom  a  man 
shoots  in  his  bed-chamber,  and  by  the  claim  of 
social  order  against  the  murderer  on  the 
scaffold.  The  claim  of  our  moral  nature  for 
truth  in  speech  and  action  is  met  in  time  of 
war  by  the  counter-claim  of  necessity  for 
deceiving  the  enemy  by  all  sorts  of  stratagems, 
so  as  to  impair  his  power  and  opportunity 
for    mischief.      The     deception     recorded     of 


VIII.]        IS   DECEPTION   EVER  A   DUTY?  151 

Elisha  in  our  text  was  practised  upon  an 
armed  enemy. 

In  all  questions  of  this  class,  one  duty  seems 
to  override  another.  It  is  not  really  so. 
Duties  do  not  conflict.  There  is  conflict  be- 
tween the  claims  of  different  courses  to  be 
regarded  as  duty.  In  any  of  these  cases,  that 
which  is  duty  under  ordinary  circamstances 
simply  ceases  to  be  duty,  and  another  course 
of  action  becomes  duty  in  its  place.  There 
can  never  be  but  one  thing  at  any  one  time 
which,  in  the  supreme  sense  of  the  word,  is 
duty.  Here,  then,  we  come  back  to  the  ques- 
tion as  already  stated  :  Does  duty  ever  require 
us  to  deviate  from  perfect  truth  ? 

III.  This  question  brings  us  next  to  ask, 
What  is  the  general  principle  on  which  these 
conflicting  claims  are  so  adjusted  that  the 
supreme  duty  in  any  given  case  is  made  clear  ? 

Our  Saviour  has  answered  this  by  the  way 
in  which  He  settled  questions  of  this  kind 
which  involved  the  duty  of  Sabbath  keeping. 
The  cattle  which  had  fallen  into  holes  might 
be  gotten  out  on  the  Sabbath  day,  despite  the 
prohibition  of  labour  on  that  day,  because  the 
claims  of  benevolence  were  supreme.  "  I  loill 
have  7nercy  and  not  sacrifice." 


152  IS   DECEPTION   EVEE  A  DUTY?        [VIII. 

The  Apostle  Paul,  following  the  principles 
of  his  Master,  has  said  that  the  several  com- 
mandments against  killing,  adultery,  stealing, 
falsehood,  coveting,  were  merely  specifications 
under  the  general  law  of  benevolence ; — that 
all  such  commandments,  as  to  their  principle, 
were  summed  up  in  this  :  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself.  Love  worketh  no  ill  to 
his  neighbour  ;  love,  therefore,  is  the  fulfilment 
of  the  law." 

This,  then,  is  the  principle  which  must 
decide  where  real  duty  lies  in  all  these  ques- 
tions of  conflicting  claims,  the  law  of  love — 
benevolence — the  obligation  to  seek  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number. 

To  illustrate  how  this  works  :  The  law  of 
love  enjoins  respect  for  human  life,  under  the 
specification,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill."  But  it 
also  forbids  us  to  respect  the  life  of  the  mur- 
derer, because  that  would  practically  under- 
mine respect  for  human  life.  The  hangman 
has  to  kill  in  order  that  there  may  be  less 
killing.  The  same  law  of  love  enjoins  respect 
for  personal  property  and  hberty.  But,  to 
secure  this  end,  it  must  take  away  liberty  and 
property  from  those  whose  crimes  undermine 
respect  for  personal  liberty  and  property.    The 


VIII.]         IS   DECEPTION   EVER  A   DUTY?  153 

same  law  commands  social  order  in  obedience 
to  civil  authority.  But  the  same  law,  in  great 
emergencies,  also  requires  revolution,  forcible 
overturning  of  the  civil  authority  that  has 
degenerated  into  intolerable  tyranny.  The 
same  law  forbids  us  to  wound  our  neighbour's 
feelings.  But  it  also  commands  us  to  hurt 
those  feelings,  on  certain  occasions,  by 
appropriate  rebukes  and  censures,  either  for  his 
own  or  the  general  good.  Thus  the  greatest 
perplexities  of  conscience  frequently  arise  from 
the  fact  that  the  supreme  law,  the  law  of  love, 
makes  apparently  opposite  demands  at  different 
times.  It,  therefore,  is  not  so  simple  to  work 
by  as  a  rule  that  requires  the  same  act  every 
time,  but  it  is  a  law  well  adapted  to  educate 
conscience  into  wisdom  to  live  according  to 
things  rather  than  according  to  names — to 
develop  spiritual  freedom  in  the  use  of  prin- 
ciples as  better  than  mechanical  habit  in  the 
use  of  rules. 

There  is  one  course,  however,  in  regard  to 
which  the  law  of  love  makes  a  single  and  un- 
varying demand.  Because  it  is  a  law  whose 
varied  operation  is  designed  to  educate  the 
conscience,  it  always  and  inflexibly  demands 
that    the   personal   conscience   shall   be   kept 


154  IS   DECEPTION   EVER  A   DUTY?        [VIII. 

inviolate.  Not  for  the  dearest  interest  that 
could  be  alleged,  not  to  save  life,  not  to 
procure  the  greatest  gain  for  the  holiest 
cause,  will  it  suffer  conscience  to  incur  a 
stain  or  a  wound.  Perjury,  adultery,  forgery, 
apostasy  from  one's  cherished  faith,  might 
often  be  the  imagined  means  of  some  great 
advantage  for  the  moment  to  one's  self, 
or  to  the  relatives  or  the  cause  most  dear  to 
us.  In  the  history  of  Christianity  the  peace 
of  families,  the  life  of  parents,  has  often  hung 
on  the  decision  of  an  individual  whether  to 
deny  his  faith  or  avow  it.  In  courts  of  justice 
the  life  of  the  accused  may  depend  on  the 
decision  of  his  own  brother  whether  to  swear 
falsely  or  truly.  The  touching  story  of  the 
sisters,  Jeanie  and  Effie  Deans,  will  be  re- 
membered by  all  readers  of  "  The  Heart  of 
Midlothian."  In  one  of  Shakespeare's  best 
known  plays,  the  plot  turns  on  the  alternative 
presented  to  a  sister,  whether  her  brother  shall 
die,  or  shall  be  ransomed  at  the  price  of  her 
own  dishonour.  In  every  conceivable  case  of 
conflicting  claims,  the  law  of  benevolence 
insists  with  clear  and  penetrating  voice  upon 
this  one  ever-paramount  duty,  under  no  cir- 
cumstances to  be  set  aside. 


VIII.]         IS   DECEPTION    EVER   A  DUTY?  155 

A  good  conscience,  stainless  uprightness  in 
act  and  purpose,  is  the  first  thing  to  be  cared 
for,  come  what  may.  It  is  easy  to  see  why. 
Without  this  pure  and  stainless  conscience, 
the  law  of  benevolence  itself,  whether  in  small 
matters  or  in  great,  can  neither  be  recognised 
nor  kept.  When  personal  rectitude  is  im- 
paired social  bonds  are  impaired,  social  as 
well  as  personal  corruption  spreads.  All 
human  interests  rest  at  bottom  on  this  main- 
tenance of  conscience  in  purity  inviolate. 

If,  then,  our  consciences  should  dictate  for 
the  conservation  of  truth  what  Quaker  con- 
sciences have  dictated  for  the  conservation  of 
peace — a  rigid  surrender  of  all  other  rights  to 
the  right  of  the  truth — then  the  surrender 
must  be  made.  Purity  of  conscience  must  be 
cared  for  first. 

Let  us,  however,  in  such  a  case,  be  sure  that 
we  do  not  impose  on  ourselves  with  a  mere 
phrase,  when  we  speak  of  "the  right  of  the 
truth."  Eights  belong  only  to  beings,  not  to 
things.  Apart  from  the  right  of  some  being 
to  the  truth,  it  would  be  hard  to  show  that 
the  truth  itself,  as  an  abstract  thing,  can  have 
any  right  at  all. 

IV.  Our  inquiry  now  becomes  more  specific. 


15G  IS   DECEPTION   EVEE  A  DUTY?         [vill. 

We  have  seen  that  the  law  of  benevolence 
requires  us  sometimes  to  take  away  the  per- 
sonal liberty  of  our  neighbour,  or  his  property, 
or  even  his  life.  Does  it  ever  require  us  to 
take  from  him  the  truth  ? 

I  answer,  that  I  think  it  sometimes  does, 
but  that  it  is  a  serious  matter  to  take  away 
the  truth,  as  it  is  to  take  away  liberty,  or  pro- 
perty, or  life.  It  is  not  to  be  done  lightly,  or 
without  a  conscientious  appreciation  of  the 
responsibihty  assumed.  Otherwise  we  trifle 
with  sacred  things,  lose  sight  of  the  funda- 
mental sanctities,  and  risk  the  shipwreck  of 
our  virtue. 

The  physician  may  find  that  his  patient's 
life  cannot  be  saved,  unless  he  deceives  him. 
Such  deceiving  is  then  required  by  the  same 
law  of  love  which  would  require  him  to  tell  his 
patient  the  truth,  if  he  could  bear  it.  Con- 
science need  not  be  wounded  in  such  a  case. 
But  why  not?  Because  the  patient  has  a 
right  to  live  if  he  can.  Here  Edmund  Burke's 
saying  applies  :  "  Men  have  no  right  to  what 
is  not  for  their  benefit."  He  has  no  right  to 
the  truth,  if  the  truth  will  kill  him.  If  nothing 
but  deception  will  save  a  sick  man,  he  has  a 
right    to    the   deception ;   because,    could    he 


VIII.]         IS   DECEPTION   EVER    A   DUTY?  157 

understand  the  case,  he  would  rather  be  de- 
ceived than  die.  Only  let  us  be  sure  of  the  if 
— the  absolute  necessity  of  the  deception,  that 
it  is  no  lazy  shift  of  mere  convenience,  too 
careless  about  the  truth  to  make  a  study  how 
to  save  it  without  hurting  the  patient.  Then, 
though  the  form  of  truth  be  surrendered  to  the 
demand  of  benevolence,  the  spirit  of  truth  is 
kept,  for  the  spirit  of  truth  is  that  same  bene- 
volence, whose  demands  we  satisfy  by  the 
necessary  deception. 

But  suppose  conscience  is  not  satisfied — not 
clear.  Suppose  one  cannot  rid  himself  of  the 
persuasion,  that,  even  in  such  a  case,  it  is 
wrong  to  falsify  or  deceive.  Then,  come  what 
may,  the  conscience  must  be  satisfied  and  re- 
spected. The  Bible  rule  is,  "  whatsoever  is 
not  of  faith" — whatsoever  does  not  rest  on  a 
positive  conviction  that  it  is  right — "  is  sin,"  to 
him  who,  against  his  conscience,  permits  it. 

In  another  case  a  man  may  find  that  a  crime 
cannot  be  prevented  except  by  deceiving  a 
would-be  burglar  or  assassin.  Such  deceiving 
is  then  required  by  the  law  of  love,  which  de- 
mands that  society  shall  be  protected  against 
criminals.  This  right  of  protection  extends 
as   far  as  is  necessary.      It   may  justify   the 


158  IS    DECEPTION    EVER   A   DUTY?         [VIII. 

killing,  and  if  so,  the  deceiving,  of  the  criminal. 
Killing  is  repugnant,  and  so  is  deceiving,  to  a 
right-minded  man  ;  yet  both  may  be  necessary 
and  approved  by  conscience,  for  the  protection 
of  the  rights  of  society  against  the  enemies  of 
society.  Conscience  admits  that  the  assailant 
of  society,  the  public  enemy,  v^ho  invades  us 
either  by  war  or  with  crime,  has  for  the  time 
forfeited  certain  rights,  the  right  to  the  truth 
included.  Not  only  has  he  no  right  to  the 
truth,  but,  so  to  speak,  he  has  a  right  or  desert 
to  the  opposite,  to  be  deceived,  as  well  as  to  be 
imprisoned  or  put  to  death,  for  the  protection 
of  society.  In  so  doing,  we  simply  give  him 
his  rights,  or  as  we  say,  "his  deserts."  But 
if  this  would  violate  the  conscience,  if  a  man's 
conscience  bids  him  rather  suffer  death  than 
deceive  an  assassin,  then,  come  what  may, 
conscience  must  be  obeyed.  For  the  law  of 
benevolence  bases  all  welfare  on  righteousness, 
and  therefore  obedience  to  conscience  is  always 
its  supreme  behest. 

Those  who  regard  the  works  of  God  in 
nature  as  revealing  somewhat  of  the  thoughts 
of  God,  may  find  a  Divine  lesson  taught  by 
the  instincts  which  the  Creator  has  implanted 
in  the  lower  animals.     You  come  on  a  sitting 


VIII.]         IS   DECEPTION   EVER   A    DUTY?  159 

partridge  in  the  woods.  She  flies  a  short 
distance  and  then,  to  hire  you  from  her  nest, 
imitates  the  motions  of  a  crippled  bird — makes 
5^ou  think  you  can  catch  her  in  a  moment — 
crawls  and  flaps  along  the  ground,  as  if  unable 
to  fly,  until  she  has  thus  drawn  you  off  a 
distance,  when  she  suddenly  takes  to  flight. 
Never  was  a  more  prettily  acted  deception. 
The  object  is  the  preservation  of  her  brood. 
This  instinctive  action  of  the  mother  is  the 
action  of  the  Universal  Mind,  intelligently 
guiding  its  unreasoning  creatures.  The  Crea- 
tor's own  work  is  in  her  trick.  It  is  a  revela- 
tion of  the  Divine  judgment  as  to  the  legitimacy 
of  deception,  in  an  extreme  case,  against  the 
assailants  of  home  or  life. 

In  the  treatment  of  the  insane,  the  same  as 
of  the  sick,  other  cases  of  necessary  deception 
may  arise.  There  are  cases  in  which  the  insane 
not  only  have  no  right  to  the  truth,  but  have  a 
right  to  be  deceived,  and  the  law  of  benevolence 
bids  us  respect  that  right. 

Professor  A.  P.  Peabody,  of  Cambridge, 
New  England,  says  that  in  such  cases  that 
which  is  falsehood  in  form  is  not  falsehood  in 
fact.  "  The  statement  which  is  indispensable 
to  the  safety,  repose,  or  reasonable  conduct  of 


160  IS   DECEPTION   EVEE  A  DUTY?        [VIII. 

the  insane  is  virtually  true  to  him,  since  it 
conveys  impressions  as  nearly  conformed  to 
the  truth  as  he  is  capable  of  receiving." 

The  Professor,  however,  cautions  us  that 
there  is  danger  in  unnecessary  resort  to  such 
deception.  He  says,  "  Those  v^ho  have  the 
guardianship  of  the  insane  are  unanimous  in 
the  opinion  that  falsehood,  when  discovered 
by  them,  is  always  attended  with  injurious 
consequences,  and  that  it  should  be  resorted 
to  only  when  imperatively  required  for  their 
immediate  safety  or  for  that  of  others." 

It  is  necessary  to  recognise  the  existence 
of  these  cases  of  legitimate  deception.  It  is 
equally  necessary  to  observe,  that  they  very 
rarely  occur.  The  grand  law  of  life  is  strict 
fidelity  to  truth,  depending  on  a  clear-sighted 
benevolence  to  dictate  to  common  sense 
whatever  any  exigency  may  demand.  Here 
we  come  back  to  the  statement  we  started 
with  and  must  never  part  from.  The  question 
is  always  to  be  this  :  Not  what  am  I  permitted 
or  justified  in,  but  what  am  I  required  to  by 
a  supreme  allegiance  to  the  law  of  love. 

V.  This,  in  the  next  place,  puts  out  of  court 
all  falsehoods  of  convenience — by  far  the 
largest  class  of  deceptions   in    which  people 


YTII.]         IS   DECEPTION    EVER    A   DUTY  ?  161 

justify  themselves.  They  have  no  standing 
ground  left  as  soon  as  duty,  rather  than 
excuses,  becomes  our  object.  Children  ask 
troublesome  questions.  Thoughtless  people 
ask  impertinent  questions.  It  is  sometimes 
much  more  convenient  to  dispose  of  the  ques- 
tion with  a  false  answer.  But  a  resort  to 
falsehood,  in  such  cases  for  mere  convenience, 
has  its  injurious  reaction.  It  is  like  a  resort 
to  the  brandy  bottle  whenever  one  feels 
languid  or  overdone.  Our  moral  tone  is 
lowered.  A  bad  habit  grows  up.  And  as  to 
the  injury  we  do  by  the  falsehood  of  conve- 
nience, it  is  simply  beyond  our  power  to 
measure.  The  falsehood  once  let  fly  is  like  a 
pistol-shot  out  of  a  city  window ;  it  may  fall 
harmless  in  a  garden,  it  may  enter  your 
neighbour's  window,  your  neighbour's  head. 

But  what  of  those  cases  where  questions 
are  asked  us  beyond  all  right  to  ask  them? 
Such  questions  are  assaults.  We  have  a  right 
to  defend  ourselves.  Yes,  but  there's  a  choice 
of  weapons.  When  we  are  assaulted  we  may 
have  a  right  to  use  our  fists,  we  have  no  right 
to  whip  out  a  pistol  on  every  occasion.  But 
people  whip  out  lies  as  border  ruffians  draw 
pistols     on     every     provocation  —  extreme 


162  IS  DECEPTION   EVER  A   DUTY?        [VIII. 

measures  in  trivial  matters.  This  is  clearly 
wrong.  With  more  address,  with  more 
courage,  a  great  deal  of  needless  falsehood 
may  be  avoided. 

Cases  occur,  however,  in  which  evasion  or 
silence   is  equivalent  to  exposing  our  secret. 
Here  we  have  to  ask,  Has  the  questioner  a 
right  to   know  ?     If  so,    that   right   must    be 
respected,  and  the  truth  made  known.     If  not, 
as  in  the  case  of  a  spy  or  meddler,  what  shall 
we  do  ?     Here  moralists  differ.     But  it  is  note- 
worthy that  two  of  the  most  eminent  of  recent 
English    moralists — Professor    Sidgwick    and 
Dr.    Martineau — take  the   ground   that    a   no 
confidence    rule   should  hold  toward  such  the 
same  as  to  armed  enemies ;  that  mere  rogues 
should   have    no  right    to  presume   for   their 
own  ends   upon  the  veracity  of  honest  men  ; 
that  deception   toward    such  is   a  legitimate 
means  of  discouraging  their  intrigues  ;  that  it 
is   a   duty   to  frustrate,   even  by  deception  if 
necessary,  those  who  seek  a  base  advantage 
by  the  scruples  of  the  truth-loving,  from  whom 
they  try  to  extort  secrets.     As  to  this,  how- 
ever— whether  we    subscribe  to    this   opinion 
or  not — we  must  insist,  as  before,  that  in  all 
cases   the  paramount  duty  is   to  respect   the 


VIII.]         IS   DECEPTION   EVER   A   DUTY?  163 

dictate  of  our  conscience,  and  keep  its  purity- 
inviolate. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  lies  of  trade  ? 
Simply  this :  They  are  born  of  a  mother  lie, 
"  Ail  is  fair  in  trade,"  a  maxim  which  regards 
trade  as  privateering,  in  which  one  may  take 
all  the  prizes  he  can  by  sailing  under  any 
assumed  flag.  The  same  mother  lie,  "  All  is 
fair  in  politics,"  breeds  the  swarm  of  party 
lies.  But  what  greater  monstrosity  than  the 
attempt  to  conduct  any  public  service, 
whether  of  commerce  or  government,  on  the 
theory  of  a  state  of  war,  where  "  weapons 
clash  and  law  is  dumb,"  and  truth  is  super- 
seded by  trick  for  selfish  ends.  Traced  thus 
to  the  false  principle  from  which  they  spring, 
the  lies  of  trade  and  politics  appear  as  smoke 
wreaths  ascending  from  that  pit  where,  as  the 
Scripture  says,  are  "  all  liars,'"  because  there 
is  no  love. 

Among  the  falsehoods  of  convenience,  I 
mention  last  the  falsehoods  of  compliment 
and  flattery.  "  I'm  so  glad  to  see  you  (but  I 
wish  you  were  a  mile  off)."  "  Bo  stay  (but 
how  I  wish  you'd  go)."  "  Come  again,  I  shall 
so  enjoy  it  (but  may  it  be  a  long  day  before  you 
do)."     "  How  fine  your  sermon  or  3'our  music 


164  IS   DECEPTION    EVER   A   DUTY?         [VIII. 

was  to-day  (but  really  it  was  very  common- 
place)." Then  conscience  protests  :  "  What 
did  you  say  that  for?"  "Why,  I  had  to  say 
something."  Not  that,  however,  if  you  did 
not  think  it  in  truth.  No  man  has  learned  to 
speak  the  truth  till  he  has  learned  to  hold 
his  tongue.  A  great  many  of  the  lies  of 
convenience  come  from  the  indulgence  of  a 
foolish  propensity  to  gabble. 

But  let  us  mark  this  :  Much  that  is  false,  as 
the  dissimulation  of  a  selfish  mind,  might 
become  true  in  the  geniality  of  a  benevolent 
mind.  It  depends  on  the  point  of  view  we 
take.  A  neighbour,  calling,  finds  you  at 
house-cleaning.  Still,  you  can  say,  with  a 
good  conscience,  "  I  am  glad  to  see  you,"  if 
you  take  the  kindly  view  of  the  case,  which, 
in  the  midst  of  all  embarrassments,  is  glad  in 
feeling  and  testifying  unselfish  friendliness. 
Many  of  the  falsehoods  of  social  compliment 
declare  no  more  than  a  genuine  benevolence, 
in  the  same  situation,  might  truly  utter.  To 
avoid  such  falsehoods,  therefore,  cultivate  that 
humane,  benevolent  interest  in  each  other, 
which  looks  mainly  on  what  is  good,  and 
speaks  of  the  good  it  sees.  This  the  good 
woman  did,  who,  when  the  subject  of  conver- 


VIII.]         IS   DECEPTION   EVER   A   DUTY?  165 

sation  happened  to  be  the  devil,  expressed  the 
wish  that  we  all  might  imitate  the  devil  in 
respect  to  his  perseverance.  The  anecdote 
has  been  reported  in  jest,  but  it  illustrates  a 
trait  to  be  cultivated  in  earnest. 

VI.  And  now,  in  the  phrase  of  Holy  Writ, 
"  Of  the  thmgs  lohich  loe  have  spoken  this  is  the 
sum:  " 

Deception  is  never  right,  unless  the  supreme 
law  of  benevolence  makes  it  for  the  time  a 
positive  duty,  as  in  the  extreme  cases  speci- 
fied. 

However  extreme  the  case,  it  is  never  a  duty 
unless  conscience  requires  it  as  such.  Amid  all 
necessities,  the  supreme  necessity  is  a  pure  con- 
science. And  yet  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 
conscience  will  often  feel  regret  at  the  best  that 
a  hard  case  admits  of.  We  must  not  confound 
this  noble  regret  of  conscience  with  the  protest 
which  conscience  makes  against  violation. 
Deception,  however  right  and  necessary,  can 
never  fail  to  provoke  the  regret  of  a  healthy 
conscience.  This  we  must  often  disregard,  if 
justice  is  to  be  done,  but  the  protest  of  con- 
science never. 

If  ever  a  duty,  deception  is  a  most  serious 
duty,  the  same  as  duty  in  an  extreme  case  to 


366  IS   DECEPTION   EVER   A   DUTY?         [VIII. 

take  away  liberty,  property,  or  life — a  duty 
that  demands  a  vigilant  and  earnest  con- 
science, backed  by  a  sense  of  grave  responsi- 
bility, just  as  the  use  of  strychnine  for 
medicine  demands  a  keen  eye  and  firm  hand 
that  will  give  not  one  unnecessary  drop. 

Personal  convenience  can  only  palliate  de- 
ception, can  never  justify  it,  because  it  can 
never  make  it  a  duty  under  the  law  of  love  to 
our  neighbour.  The  falsehood  of  convenience 
can  never  be  anything  more  than  the  false- 
hood of  selfishness,  and,  as  such,  is  always 
unlawful. 

Unlawful  deception,  however  trivial,  is  a 
crime  against  moral  health  and  personal 
character.  Says  Dr.  Wayland,  "White  lies 
always  introduce  others  of  a  darker  com- 
plexion. I  have  seldom  known  any  one  who 
deserted  truth  in  trifles  that  could  be  trusted 
in  matters  of  importance.  There  is  no  vice 
which  more  easily  than  this  stupefies  a  man's 
conscience." 

"  To  love  truth  for  truth's  sake,"  says  John 
Locke,  "  is  the  principal  part  of  human  perfec- 
tion in  this  world,  and  the  seed-plot  of  all 
other  virtues."  Speaking  and  dealing  accord- 
ing to   the   reality  of  things,   without  sham, 


Vni.]        IS   DECEPTION   EVER  A   DUTY?  167 

illusion,  or  fraud,  is  the  spinal  marrow  of  cha- 
racter ;  wound  it,  and  moral  paralysis  ensues. 
The  Divine  laws  of  all  existence  are  based  on 
truth,  and  administered  in  truth.  To  base 
our  work,  our  reputation  and  influence,  our 
character  and  expectations,  on  anything  but 
truth,  is  to  defy  both  nature  and  God.  He 
who  chooses  any  other  instrument  than  truth 
to  work  with,  grasps  a  sword  by  the  blade  to 
strike  with  the  hilt.  Whatever  he  hits,  the 
weapon,  so  grasped,  drinks  most  deeply  of  his 
own  life-blood. 


IX. 
THE    TBINITY. 


IX. 

THE    TRINITY. 

"  The  Name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."— Matthe-w  xxviii.  19. 

An  eminent  member  of  the  Church  of  England 
not  long  ago  said  to  me  :  "  The  subject  of  the 
Trinity  has  been  dropped  here,  except  once  a 
year,  on  Trinity  Sunday."  Nearly  at  the 
same  time  an  equally  eminent  English  Non- 
conformist said  to  me :  "  The  truth  of  the 
Trinity  is  that  from  which  we  are  to  expect 
most  for  the  quickening  and  deepening  of 
Christian  life."  Eegretting  the  former  of  these 
two  statements,  and  heartily  believing  the 
latter,  I  wish  to  spend  this  half-hour  with  you 
in  thought  upon  the  Trinity. 

Here  I  trust  that  no  one,  having  heard  this 
announcement,  will  so  remember  past  impres- 
sions of  unintelligible  mystery  in  this  subject 
as  to  despair  of  profit  from  any  further  atten- 

Pkeached  in  Aneklet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Morning,  September  2,  1888. 


172  THE    TRINITY.  [iX. 

tion  to  it.  Sad  work  has  indeed  been  made 
with  it  in  the  past,  and  to  such  discouragement 
that  we  seldom  hear  it  undertaken  in  any 
Christian  pulpit.  Dr.  Bushnell,  that  revered 
teacher  of  the  New  England  churches,  was 
wont  to  declare  that  the  current  orthodoxy  had 
become  rank  heresy  in  its  treatment  of  the 
Trinity.  I  am  very  sure  that  we  need  to  find 
our  way  out  of  a  dreary  wilderness  of  theolo- 
gical subtleties  back  to  the  ancient  simplicity 
of  the  original  truth,  where  we  shall  find  com- 
fort instead  of  confusion. 

It  especially  behoves  us  to  seek  freedom  from 
the  reproach  of  believing  what  we  cannot  ex- 
plain so  as  to  satisfy  the  intelligent  inquirer.  It 
is  not  true  to  say  that  the  Trinity  defies 
explanation ;  not  true  that  it  is  above  the 
intelligent  comprehension  of  any  clear-minded 
man.  A  child  of  fourteen  years  recently  came 
to  me  with  a  spontaneous  expression  of  interest 
in  the  exposition  of  the  subject  which  I  am 
about  to  give.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
true  that  what  Dr.  Bushnell  calls  "  the  dilapi- 
dated orthodoxy  "  of  the  New  England  churches 
on  this  subject — no  worse  dilapidated,  I  appre- 
hend, than  in  other  modern  countries — has 
brought  it  into  a  view  which  he  calls  "  repug- 


IX.]  THE    TRINITY.  173 

nant  to  faith  and  impossible  to  reason."  It  is 
imperative,  therefore,  at  the  outset,  to  disavow 
all  interest  in  the  old  mothers  of  controversy 
— the  theological  riddles  about  *'  the  three 
Persons."  We  must  begin  by  confessing  that 
the  term  "  persons  "  is,  in  effect,  a  misleading 
word — which  Calvin  himself  professed  willing- 
ness to  drop.  We  must  bid  adieu  to  whatever 
we  have  found  unintelligible  in  our  theology, 
and  seek  to  rediscover  the  truth  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Here  it  appears  to  be  proclaimed  to  the 
new  convert  at  his  baptism  as  the  one  funda- 
mental and  comprehensive  truth  which  his 
young  faith  is  to  lay  inteUigent  hold  of— the 
summary  and  condensed  expression  of  his 
Christian  consciousness. 

Yoa  are  aware  that  these  three  designations 
— "  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost," 
are  not  given  by  Christ  as  different  names  of 
God,  but  as  together  constituting  the  one 
Name  by  which  the  Christian  is  to  confess 
God  as  the  Supreme  Object  of  faith.  But  have 
you  reflected  on  the  fact  that  it  is  by  this  Name 
of  God  that  Christianity  differs — so  far  as  out- 
ward profession  goes — from  Judaism,  from 
Mohammedanism,  from  every  form  of  religion 
ever  known  ?    This  is  a  difference  more  essential 


174  THE    TRINITY.  [iX. 

than  we  may  at  first  suppose.  En  popular 
thought  names  are  mere  labels  convenient  for 
the  external  distinguishing  of  one  thing  from 
another.  In  Christ's  teaching,  as  in  the  Scrip- 
tures generally,  names  express  radical  distinc- 
tions, names  stand  for  substantial  and  vital 
realities.  Consequently,  the  Christian  idea  of 
God,  as  Christ  embodies  it  in  the  uev^^  Name 
by  which  He  made  God  known — "  the  Father, 
and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,"  differs 
essentially  from  every  idea  of  God  that  any 
other  religion  has  ever  presented.  This,  there- 
fore, I  beg  you  to  bear  in  mind,  is  the  supreme 
interest  of  our  present  subject,  to  come  at  the 
distinctively  Christian  idea  of  God. 

This  is,  indeed,  the  fundamental  object  of 
all  religious  inquiry.  But  I  now  urge  it  as 
being  also  the  chief  practical  necessity  of  com- 
mon life.  Rightly  understood,  the  Trinity  is 
no  speculation  of  dry  learning,  far  from  daily 
needs  ;  it  is  the  Divinely-given  watchword  for 
the  Christian's  daily  struggle.  For  it  is  the 
symbol  and  pledge  of  the  great  fact  on  which 
our  salvation  depends — the  perpetual  in- dwell- 
ing of  God  in  the  world,  His  eternal  union  with 
the  life  of  humanity,  and  His  presence  in  the 
individual  breast.      All  other  religions  have  set 


IX.]  THE    TEINITY.  175 

God  at  a  distance,  high  in  the  heavens,  afar 
from  the  world,  and  outside  of  human  life.  It 
is  the  glory  of  Christianity  to  have  filled  this 
gulf — to  show  God  as  with  us  and  in  us — 
saying,  with  Paul,  "  Ye  are  the  Temple  of  God, 
and  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you "  ; 
saying,  with  Paul's  Master,  "  The  Father  is  in 
Me  and  I  in  Him ;  "  promising  the  believer,  in 
Jesus'  words,  "  The  Father  and  I  will  make  our 
abode  with  him.'' 

The  scientific  doctrine  of  evolution,  and  its 
fundamental  principle  that  all  life  is  one — that 
the  life  of  the  insect  and  the  life  of  the  man, 
the  vital  rill  and  the  vital  river,  are  but  the 
one  widening  stream  from  the  one  original 
Fount  of  Uncreated  Life,  is  really  a  modern 
philosophic  reading,  a  reading  but  in  part,  of 
the  ancient  truth  which  Jesus  made  the  basis 
of  His  Gospel — that  God  is  not  outside  of  His 
works  but  in  them,  as  the  Father  in  the  Son, 
as  the  Spirit  quickening  all  things,  as  the  One 
Life  of  all  that  live.  It  is  this  truth  which 
gives  sacredness  to  our  life,  enthusiasm  to 
philanthropy,  patience  and  hope  to  our  earthly 
struggle,  and  glory  to  the  world  in  which  the 
Creator  and  Redeemer  is  recognised  as  the  all- 
pervading  Presence.      It  is  for  this  that  the 


176  THE   TRINITY.  [iX. 

Trinity  is  at  once  the  fundamental  truth  of 
Christianity,  and  the  universal  truth  which 
touches  daily  life  at  every  point  with  an  up- 
lifting power. 

We  are  well  aware,  as  we  are  often  re- 
minded of  the  fact,  that  the  name  "Trinity" 
is  not  in  the  Bible,  and  that  the  Trinitarian 
phrase,  "  the  Three  Persons,"  is  not  in  the 
Bible.  But  we  have  at  present  no  concern 
with  the  Trinitarian  dogmas  which  have 
descended  to  us  from  the  fourth  century,  in 
which  with  much  truth  there  is  much  mystery. 
"We  apply  ourselves  simply  to  the  Biblical 
statements.  We  find  in  the  Bible  a  progres- 
sive revelation  of  God,  of  which  the  names 
given  to  Him  at  successive  periods  mark  the 
successive  advances,  till  the  revelation  is  com- 
pleted by  Christ  in  His  announcement  of  the 
Triune  Name  of  "  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghosts 

The  first  step  of  this  revelation  of  God  ap- 
pears in  the  Book  of  Genesis.*    The  word  first 

*  Apart  from  all  critical  judgments  respecting  the  date 
of  the  first  chapters  of  Grenesis,  or  other  parts  of  the  Old 
Testament,  the  fact  before  ns  is,  that  the  final  editors  of 
the  Old  Testament  Canon — whoever  they  were — have  used 
the  material  at  their  hand  for  a  record  of  the  progress 
of  revelation,  and  have  distinctly  marked  successive  ad- 
vances in  men's  conception  of  God. 


IX.]  THE    TRINITY.  177 

used  to  denote  God  is  a  plural  word,  signifying 
"  gods."  Here  we  have  a  glimpse  of  primitive 
heathenism,  worshipping  many  gods,  deities 
of  the  air  and  earth  and  waters.  Kevelation 
begins  by  teaching  these  polytheists  the  Unity 
of  God.  To  do  so,  it  communicates  no  new 
name  of  God,  but  takes  the  plural  name  of 
deity,  which  was  in  common  use,  and  makes 
a  new  use  of  it — treats  it  as  not  a  plural  but  a 
singular  name,  applying  to  the  plural  form, 
*'gods,"  the  singular  pronouns  "he,"  and 
"  his,"  and  "  him."  So  the  Hebrew  reads,  that 
"  Gods  created  man  in  His  own  image."  Our 
missionaries  often  have  thus  to  give  a  new 
turn  to  a  heathen  word,  in  order  to  bring  in  a 
new  truth.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
attempt  of  revelation — to  teach  men  to  speak 
of  Deity  as  God,  not  gods — He,  not  they — 
One,  not  many. 

Next,  we  find  that  this  first  lesson  has  borne 
fruit.  The  truth  that  the  many  gods  of 
heathenism  must  give  place  to  one  God,  is 
embodied  in  a  new  name  for  Him,  and 
instead  of  the  plural  form,  Elohim,  "gods," 
appears  the  singular  form.  El,  signifying  "the 
Mighty  One."  Here  is  a  real  advance  in  men's 
idea  of   God.     The  many  powers  before  dis- 


178  THE    TRINITY.  [iX. 

tributed  among  many  deities  are  at  length 
regarded  as  concentrated  in  One,  whom,  with- 
out partner  or  rival,  men  worshipped  as  the 
Supreme  Power. 

A  new  advance  of  thought  respecting  God  is 
marked  by  still  another  new  name.  The  God 
of  Power,  El,  is  also  He  in  whom  His 
worshippers  may  trust.  This  thought  is  con- 
nected with  the  name  Jehovah  (originally 
pronounced  "  Yah  we  ").  This  is  the  name  by 
which  Moses  revealed  God  to  his  oppressed 
people  as  the  God  of  hope.  It  is  interpreted 
in  the  Book  of  Exodus  as  signifying,  "  I  will  be 
constant  to  you,"  as  He  in  whom  you  may 
trust.*  Accordingly,  God  is  there  represented 
as  saying,  "  This  is  My  name  for  ever,  and 
this  is  My  meniorial  to  all  generations.''  By 
this  name  throughout  the  Old  Testament 
God  is  represented  as  a  faithful  covenant- 
keeper  with  His  people.  The  earlier  thought 
of  God's  almighty  power  has  here  ripened  into 

*  The  phraseology  is  confessedly  obscure.  But  the 
A.V.  and  R.V.,  "  I  am  that  I  am,"  is  probably  a  mistake 
for  the  future,  "I  will  he  that  I  will  he."  The  word  of 
promise,  "I  will  he,"  is  more  congruous  with  the  occa- 
sion, and  more  suited  to  the  understanding  of  such  a 
people,    than    a    declaration    of    self-existent    Being,   "I 


IX.J  THE    TRINITY.  179 

the  thought  of  God  as  the  refuge  of  hope  and 
the  guardian  of  faith. 

But  trust  naturally  begets  love.  This 
appears  in  the  further  advance  of  thought 
about  God  which  the  Old  Testament  makes 
in  the  confession  of  Isaiah,  "  Doubtless  Thou 
art  our  Father."  Here,  at  last,  the  yearning 
of  man  for  Divine  sympathy  in  the  communion 
of  the  spirit  comes  to  its  bloom.  Karely, 
however,  did  these  ancient  believers  reach  this 
higher  level.  In  barely  ten  instances  in  all  the 
later  writings  of  the  Bible  is  this  precious  name 
of  personal  relationship  apphed  to  God.  The 
Old  Testament  saints  seem  to  have  thought  of 
God  as  the  Father  of  their  nation.  It  was 
reserved  for  Jesus  to  reveal  Him  as  Father  to 
every  man.  They  thought  of  Him  only  as  a 
distant  Father,  throned  above  and  worshipped 
from  afar.  It  was  reserved  for  Jesus  also  to 
manifest  the  Father  as  in  the  world,  and  as 
the  Partaker  of  the  life  of  His  human  family. 

Thus  we  see  that,  on  the  one  hand,  there 
had  been  a  progress  of  revelation  concerning 
God,  and  a  great  advance  in  men's  thought  of 
God,  This  had  been  led  up  from  the  many 
deities  of  heathenism  to  God,  as  One,  and 
Almightv,    the    faithful  Covenant-keeper,    and 


180  THE    TRINITY.  [iX. 

the  heavenly  Father.  We  even  find  Jeremiah 
rising  to  the  sublime  utterance,  "Do  not  I  fill 
heaven  and  earth  ?  saith  theljonj).''  But  yet 
the  fact  remained,  and  now  we  must  mark  it 
well,  that  there  was  still  in  common  thought 
a  chasm  between  God  and  the  world,  between 
the  Life  of  God  and  the  life  of  men.  God 
was  regarded  as  of  one  nature,  and  man  as  of 
another ;  God  was  in  heaven  and  man  was  on 
earth.  Communication  was  at  arm's  length. 
God  only  touched  things  from  the  outside,  and 
so  made  them  go.  Nor  is  it  beyond  the  truth 
to  say,  that  this  ancient  Jewish  conception  of 
God  is  still  among  us  the  prevailing  one. 

What,  therefore,  I  now  wish  to  lay  all 
emphasis  upon,  is  the  unquestionable  fact 
that  this  Jewish  conception  of  God  as  outside 
the  world,  and  controlling  it  at  arm's  length,  is 
one  that  the  Christian  truth  of  the  Trinity  will 
not  agree  with  any  better  than  the  new  wine 
vnth  the  old  bottles  in  Jesus'  parable.  The 
bottles  burst ;  the  wine  is  lost.  Men  reject 
the  Trinity,  simply  becau^se  it  will  not  fit 
reasonably  into  their  Jewish  notion  of  a  God 
who  is  not  a  partaker  of  the  life  of  the  world, 
who  governs  the  world  as  a  king  governs  a 
remote  province  of  his  realm.     The  only  idea 


IX.]  THE    TEINITY.  181 

of  the  Divine  Trinity  that  will  fit  this  non- 
Christian  idea  of  God,  is  that  of  a  trio  or 
triplet  of  Divine  "Persons."  But,  in  propor- 
tion as  this  expression  becomes  compre- 
hensible in  an  intelligible  sense  of  vi^ords, 
it  becomes  contradictory  to  the  primal 
truth,  that  God  is  One.  We  have  been  taught 
to  elude  the  contradiction  by  taking  refuge  in 
mystery  and  appealing  to  faith.  This  is  not 
necessarily  unreasonable,  but  it  is  certainly 
premature  until  we  have  gone  back  of  the 
contradiction  to  see  whether  it  does  not  derive 
a  fictitious  strength  from  some  falsity  in  our 
fundamental  conception  of  God. 

A  very  different  conception  of  God  was 
introduced  by  Jesus.  We  now  must  notice 
that  He  introduced  it  as  preparatory  to  that 
final  announcement  of  "  the  Father  and  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,''  with  which  He  com- 
pleted and  crowned  His  teaching  concerning 
God.  It  is  Jesus'  thought  of  God  as  with  us 
and  in  us,  which  is  summed  up  in  that  Triune 
Name,  and  gives  us  the  right  thought  about 
that  Triune  Name. 

We  are  sufficiently  familiar  with  Jesus' 
frequent  declarations  of  His  unity  with  God. 
Yet  I  doubt  if  we  duly  understand  His  thought. 


182  THE    TEINITY.  [iX, 

He  said,  "  I  and  Mij  Father  are  one."  But  He 
also  prayed  for  the  disciples  in  similar  words, 
'*  that  they  may  be  one,  everi  as  loe  are."  Call- 
ing Himself  constantly  by  a  name  that  no  one 
else  addressed  Him  by — "  the  Son  of  Man  " — 
He  spoke  as  the  Representative  of  hmnanity, 
the  Ideal  Man,  and  taught  us  so  to  regard 
Him  in  respect  to  our  relations  with  God. 
Thus  He  prayed  for  the  disciples,  "  that  they 
may  all  he  one;  even  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me, 
and  I  in  Thee,  that  they  also  may  he  in  Us." 

Are  we  sure  that  we  have  found  the  deep 
meaning  of  these  words  ?  Plainly  they  show- 
Jesus'  thought  to  be  this :  that  union  with 
God  which  had  become  fully  realised  in  Him 
was  capable  of  being  realised  in  those  who 
learn  of  Him — He  being,  as  the  Apostle  says, 
"  the  firstborn  among  many  brethren''  So 
Athanasius  taught,  that  all  that  Jesus  was  and 
did  belongs  to  the  race  of  man  with  which  He 
was  one.*  Evidently,  in  these  words  of  prayer, 
which  He  breathed  on  the  last  night  before  the 
Cross,  He  claimed  for   Himself  no  exclusive 

*  It  is  clear  that  the  "  homoousion,"  or  consubstantiality 
with  the  Father,  which  was  the  shibboleth  of  the  Trini- 
tarian party  in  the  Council  of  Nicsea,  so  far  as  true  of 
Christ  must  be  true  of  the  race  of  which  He  was 
born. 


IX.]  THE    TRINITY.  183 

unity  with  God — for  then  the  old  chasm  in 
human  thought  and  life  between  God  and  men 
would  still  remain  unfilled.  Evidently,  it  is 
the  One  Divine  Life  which  is  alike  in  Him  and 
in  all  the  children  of  God,  though  in  varying 
degrees.  That  Uncreated  Life,  which  was 
before  all  things,  has  become,  as  it  were, 
generated,*  or  "  begotten,"  in  its  creatures. 
This  is  the  truth,  profound  but  plain,  which 
we  express,  whether  we  know  it  or  not,  in 
speaking  of  "  God  the  Son." 

For  God  is  doubtless  revealed  in  Jesus,  but 
not  in  Jesus  only,  though  in  Him  supremely. 
AVhat  we  see  to  be  Divine  in  Jesus,  we  see  to 
be  no  less  really  Divine  when  shown  in  others. 
God  is  doubtless  revealed  in  every  follower  of 
Jesus,  so  far  as  he  is  Jesus'  follower.  But 
these  revelations  of  God  in  human  life  are 
more  than  rays  of  goodness  from  a  distant 
source ;  they  are  the  glory  of  a  present  God ; 
they  reveal  a  generated,  or  "  begotten,"  life, 
which  is  one  with  the  Unbegotten.  "It  is 
God"  says  Paul,  "  ivlio  worheth  in  you.''  And 
again,  says  Paul,  "  There  is  one  God  and  Father 

*  The  Nicene  doctrine  of  "eternal  generation,"  dis- 
paraged as  it  has  been  by  some  modern  Trinitarians,  must 
be  held  to  represent  an  undeniable  truth. 


184  THE    TEINITY.  [iX. 

of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and 
in  all."  God  is  in  humanity,  as  well  as  above 
it.  This  is  the  truth  by  which  Jesus  and  His 
chief  Apostle  conduct  us  to  an  understanding 
of  the  term  "  Son  "  in  the  Triune  Name — the 
oneness  of  the  "begotten"  with  the  Unbe- 
gotten  Life. 

Here  we  find  no  such  scandal  to  reason  or 
puzzle  to  faith  as  in  the  popular  notion  of  a 
distinct  Divine  Person,  who  is  not  a  distinct 
person  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  that  word. 
Nor  do  we  find  here  any  such  weak  dilution  as 
fancy  has  been  driven  to  in  the  recoil  of  reason 
from  words  without  meaning,  as  when  it  has 
imagined  that  the  term  "Son"  is  merely  a 
name  by  which  God  calls  Himself  while  en- 
gaged in  a  temporary  work  as  our  Eedeemer.  •' 
On  the  contrary,  the  real  import  of  this  word 
*'  Son"  is  that  eternal  truth  which,  in  these 
last  days,  science  is  already  beginning  to  dis- 
cern in  its  discovery  that  all  created  life  is 
one.      The   Christian   revelation   is,  that   the 

*  The  peculiarity  of  "  Sabellianism "  (nowadays  a 
handy  term  of  reproach  against  Trinitarians  who  dissent 
from  popiUar  tritheistic  notions)  is  in  regarding  the  "  Son," 
and  also  the  "  Holy  Ghost,"  as  merely  transient  phenomena 
of  Deity,  expedients  for  the  present  purposes  of  revelation, 
and  both  beginning  and  ending  in  time. 


IX.]  THE    TRINITY.  185 

created  life  is  one  with  the  Uncreated.  God 
is  not  afar,  but  here.  God  is  both  in  Jesus  as 
spiritual  Head  of  His  human  family,  and  in 
every  member  that  is  joined  to  the  Head. 
Says  Paul :  "  The  head  of  every  man  is  Christ'' 
The  Creator  has  not  left  the  creation  to 
itself,  but  evermore  abides  in  it  as  its  Begotten 
Life,  guiding  its  course,  bringing  forth  successive 
births  of  goodness  and  of  power.both  sharing  our 
life  and  shaping  our  destiny  tov^ard  ends  Divine. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  "Father"  is  God 
above  the  world,  above  all  worlds,  before  all 
ages,  the  infinite  and  mysterious  Fount  of 
Being,  whom  the  Agnostic  scruples  even  to 
name,  but  to  us  dear  and  adorable  as  Father 
for  that  which  is  "begotten"  of  Him — the 
Son,  supremely  revealed  in  Jesus,  *  mani- 
fested in  all  human  goodness,  witnessed  to  by 
the  progress  of  philanthropy,  as  the  Partner  of 
our  struggle,  the  Helper  of  our  salvation,  the 
abiding  Strength  of  our  strength,  the  Eternal 
Boot  and  Blossom  of  our  life,  God  in  our  life 
for  ever. 

*  In  the  Scriptural  term  "  only  begotten,"  as  applied  to 
Jesus,  we  cannot  take  "  only  "  to  mean  exclusively,  without 
contradicting  the  Scriptvu-altriith  which  Paul  discovered  in 
a  Greek  poet,  "  We  also  are  His  offspring."  Not  exclusive- 
ness,  but  pre-eminence  is  meant  here  by  "only." 


186  THE    TEINITY.  [iX. 

Such  is  the  consecration  which  Jesus  would 
impart  to  human  hfe  by  the  very  Name  of 
God,  as  the  Sharer  as  well  as  the  Giver  of  our 
life. 

A  profounder  consecration  still  is  in  that 
remaining  word,  "the  Holy  Ghost,"  which 
speaks  of  God  as  the  sharer,  not  only  of  the 
common  and  visible  life  of  humanity,  but  of 
the  personal  and  hidden  life  of  the  individual. 
Darkened  and  smothered  though  it  be,  there 
is  yet  a  Divine  spark  latent  in  the  most 
imbruted  life,  one  chord  which,  when  all 
others  are  broken,  will  still  respond  to  the 
touch  of  truth.  But  when  cultivated  by  con- 
stant earnestness  and  prayer,  how  godlike  the 
power  by  which  one  true  man  stands  singly 
forth  to  face  a  hostile  world,  by  which 
the  weakest  become  heroes,  by  which 
prisoners  sing  psalms  in  chains,  by  which  the 
unbearable  is  borne  and  the  impossible  is 
done. 

And  what  is  this  power,  by  which  a  good 
man  fights  the  good  fight?  Men  call  it  "  con- 
science," The  Apostle,  looking  higher,  says: 
"  The  Spirit  helpeth  our  infirmity."  "  We  live 
by  the  Spirit."  Jesus  says :  "He shall  be  in  you, 
to  guide  you  into  all  truth."     We  may  find  God 


IX.]  THE    TRINITY.  187 

everywhere,  but  we  shall  find  Him  nowhere 
if  not  within  ourselves,  where  the  touch  of  an 
invisible  Hand  checks  our  waywardness,  and 
a  mysterious  Voice  reproves  our  folly,  and 
visions  of  a  Divine  judgment  -  seat  arise  to 
warn  the  careless  and  confirm  the  wavering. 
And  this  most  secret  "  Soul  of  our  soul  "  is 
indeed  the  same  God  who  is  before  and 
above  the  world  as  Father,  and  in  the  world 
as  Son.  In  naming  Him  "  the  Holy  Ghost  " 
Jesus  makes  His  revelation  of  the  Divine 
Trinity  complete.  And  as  He  is  about  to 
leave  the  world.  He  communicates  to  us  this 
Triune  Name  of  the  Eternal  One,  to 
represent,  says  Dr.  Schaff,  "the  whole  of 
Christianity,"  to  be  cherished  as  "  a  brief 
summary  of  all  the  truths  and  blessings  "  of 
His  revelation. 

And  now,  let  none  of  us  imagine  that  any- 
thing essential  has  been  left  out  of  our 
account,  because  the  usual  phraseology  about 
the  "  Three  Persons"  has  been  discarded.  If 
we  miss  this,  we  miss  nothing  but  what  the 
staunchest  Trinitarians  have  confessed  un- 
satisfactory, and  Calvin  has  declared  himself 
willing  to  disuse — so  has  it  been  at  once  the 


188  THE    TKINITY.  [iX. 

stumbling-block  of  Christian  intelligence,  and 
the  natural  provocative  of  scepticism.  Nor 
let  any  one  imagine  that  it  is  a  novel  modern 
speculation  that  has  been  proposed.  Far  from 
it.  It  would  be  easy  to  exhibit  the  essence  of 
it  in  quotations  from  Athanasius,  the  father  of 
Trinitarian  theology.  If  here  we  miss  any- 
thing that  we  have  reputed  as  a  "form  of 
sound  words,"  it  is  only  the  phrase — a  ques- 
tionable phrase — that  we  miss.  The  thing  is 
here,  all  that  Jesus  taught  us,  "  the  Father, 
Son,  mid  Holy  Ghost,''  the  Three  personal 
agencies  of  God,  not  three  individual  agents — 
the  Three  personal  activities  of  God,  not  three 
individual  actors.  These  Three  activities  are 
the  One  God  in  the  fulness  of  His  eternal 
working,  above,  and  through,  and  in  His 
creatures,  as  Fathee,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost 
for  ever.  There  are  these  Three,  no  more,  no 
less.  For  in  these  is  comprehended  the  entire 
sphere  of  knowledge  and  of  power,  and  the 
whole  circle  of  Life  is  thus  eternally  filled, 
from  centre  to  circumference,  with  the  infinite 
activities  of  God. 

Finally,  let  us  not  imagine  it  to  be  a  matter 
of  small  moment  to  have  received  such  a  truth 
as  this  of  the  Divine  Trinity  for  the  parting 


IX.]  THE    TRINITY.  189 

gift  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  "Well  may  we  regard 
His  last  words  as  His  most  significant  words. 
What  does  it  signify,  then,  that  in  His  last 
words  He  communicated  this  new  and  Triune 
Name  of  God  ? 

Doubtless  it  depends  much  on  our  con- 
ception of  God,  what  sort  of  a  life  we  live. 
A  false  or  misleading  idea  of  God  brings  moral 
darkness  and  weakness  into  the  soul.  The 
darkness  of  heathenism  is  the  shadow  of  its 
falsities  concerning  God.  The  weakness  of 
much  nominal  Christianity  grows  out  of  its 
delusions  concerning  God.  From  ages  of 
darkness  there  still  survives  in  the  Church 
the  illusion,  common  to  all  false  religions, 
that  God  is  of  a  nature  alien  to  our  nature, 
external  to  the  world,  and  by  His  very  in- 
finiteness  removed  from  us.  This  is  so  in- 
bred into  us  that  we  unconsciously  act  upon 
it,  even  though  we  know  it  is  not  so.  The 
truth  of  the  Divine  Trinity  is  the  appointed 
safeguard  against  this,  that  we  may  not  live 
as  in  a  soulless  world,  and  in  an  unspiritual 
mind,  blinded  to  the  eternal  presence  of  the 
all-pervading  Divine  Life.  Our  life  is  indeed 
both  communicated,  and  shared,  and  inspired, 
by  the  Eternal  One,  who  "  is  above  all,  and 


190  THE    TRINITY.  [iX. 

through  all,  and  in  all."  For  our  steadfast- 
ness in  duty,  for  our  purity  of  heart,  for  our 
peacefulness  of  hope,  we  need  much  more 
than  the  Trinitarian  dogma  about  the  "  Three 
Persons."  We  need  to  reahse  in  our  habitual 
consciousness  the  true  Christian  import  of  the 
Name  of  God,  as  the  "  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost."  Oftener  let  us  think  upon 
it,  that  the  Life  of  the  all-creating  Father 
still  animates  the  filial  growth  of  the  unfolding 
world,  still  palpitates  in  the  spiritual  struggles 
of  aspiring  goodness  ;  and  that  this  same  Life, 
which  shone  with  divinest  glory  from  the  face 
of  Jesus,  still  strives  within  us,  to  bring  light 
out  of  darkness,  and  to  make  us  in  the  Spirit 
true  children  of  God. 


X. 

BALAAM:    THE  MORAL  CBOSS-EYE. 


BALAAM:    THE  MOBAL  CBOSS-EYE. 

"  And  when  Balaam  saw  that  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  bless 
Israel,  he  went  not,  as  at  the  other  times,  to  meet  ivith  en- 
chantments, hut  he  set  his  face  toward  the  wilderness.  And 
Balaam  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  he  saw  Israel  dwelling  accord- 
ing to  their  tribes;  and  the  spirit  of  God  came  upon  him. 
And  he  took  up  his  parable,  and  said  : 

Balaam  the  son  of  Beor  saith, 
And  the  man  whose  eye  was  closed  saith  : 
He  saith,  which  heareth  the  words  of  God, 
Which  seeth  the  vision  of  the  Almighty, 
Falling  down,  and  having  his  eyes  open  : 
How  goodly  are  thy  tents,  0  Jacob, 
Thy  tabernacles,  0  Israel ! 

— Numbers  xxiv.  1 — 5. 

The  story  of  Balaam  is  a  remarkable  story. 
However  we  understand  the  occmTences  de- 
scribed, the  moral  lesson  is  plain  and  un- 
mistakable, and  nowise  dependent  on  the 
historical  accuracy  of  the  narrative.  But 
probably  the  larger   number  of  readers  have 

Preached  in  Anerlet  Congregational  Church, 
Sunday  Evening,  September  2,  1888. 

13 


194  BALAAM  :  [X. 

taken  more  notice  of  the  beast  in  the  story 
than  of  the  man,  more  of  the  animal  which 
for  the  time  seems  to  have  two  tongues — the 
power  of  human  as  well  as  of  animal  utterance, 
— than  of  the  man  who  has  two  minds — the 
rational  and  religious  insight  of  a  man, 
together  v/ith  the  perverse  and  wilful  temper 
of  a  brute.  The  man,  however,  is  undoubtedly 
a  greater  wonder  than  the  beast  he  bestrides, 
so  far  as  the  moral  world  is  grander  than  the 
physical,  so  far  as  the  play  of  spiritual  forces 
is  more  significant  than  the  impressions  which 
strike  our  senses  and  are  gone.  Here  is 
the  real  marvel  of  the  story ; — not  in  the  dia- 
logue of  man  with  beast,  or  in  the  dialogue  of 
man  with  angel. 

The  historical  Balaam  died  more  than  three 
thousand  years  ago.  The  type  survives. 
Balaams  are  still  common — men  of  high  pro- 
fession and  low  practice,  of  strong  emotions 
and  weak  principles,  of  right  discernment  and 
perverse  desire — two-minded  men,  morally 
cross-eyed,  their  conscience  discerning  truth 
and  duty,  their  desire  turned  aside  to  what  is 
false  and  lawless.  What  Jesus  means  in  say- 
ing, "  If  thine  eye  be  single,  thy  lohole  body 
shall  be  full  of  light,"  appears  in  our  study  of 


X.]  THE   MOKAL   CROSS-EYE.  195 

Balaam  as  the  type  of  the   exactly  opposite 
condition. 

Balaam  flashes  into  the  sacred  history  Hke  a 
comet,  bright  and  grand,  from  regions  un- 
known. He  seems  to  have  lived  beyond  the 
Syrian  desert,  by  the  river  Euphrates,  in  the 
land  from  vs^hich  Abraham  with  his  high  faith 
in  God  had  emigrated  westward  five  hundred 
years  before.  The  degree  of  religious  illumin- 
ation which  Balaam  seems  to  possess  appears 
equal  to  that  of  Moses  himself,  greater  even 
than  that  of  many  in  Christian  lands.  Thus  a 
purer  light  than  we  have  imagined  may  shine 
in  many  a  soul  that  we  class  among  heathen, 
and  the  heathen,  even  without  the  Gospel, 
may  be  in  his  sins  without  excuse. 

Balaam  had  a  trade,  and  lived  by  it.  He 
was  a  diviner.  The  universal  custom  of  the 
nations  was  to  propitiate  by  means  of  magic 
those  invisible  powers  with  which  men  now 
cope  by  means  of  science.  To  prognosticate 
future  events,  to  avert  drought  and  pestilence, 
to  procure  victory  in  war,  to  obtain,  in  short, 
from  the  invisible  realms  beyond  the  penetra- 
tion of  ordinary  mortals  that  "  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  "  which  is  said  to  have  been 
sought  in  Eden  from  the  fruit  of  the  forbidden 


196  BALAAM  :  [X. 

tree — a  higher  knowledge  and  so  a  higher 
power  to  obtain  good  things  and  avert  evil — 
this  was  the  trade  of  the  class  to  which 
Balaam  belonged,  and  a  very  lucrative  trade  it 
was.  For  a  single  fortunate  prediction  a 
diviner  might  obtain,  as  we  learn  from  Xeno- 
phon,  a  sum  equal  to  about  £6,000. 

Balaam  seems,  like  others  of  his  trade  in 
ancient  and  modern  times,  to  have  possessed 
that  highly  sensitive  nervous  organisation 
which — as  in  persons  classed  as  clairvoyants 
or  spirit-mediums — is  susceptible  to  certain 
mysterious  influences  of  which  normally  con- 
stituted men  feel  nothing.  In  a  certain  high- 
wrought  exaltation  of  his  nervous  life  he  came 
under  a  power  superior  to  that  of  his  own  will, 
so  that  he  could  not  but  utter  the  thoughts 
that  then  possessed  him.  In  such  a  condition 
he  fell  prostrate  upon  the  earth,  and  spoke 
involuntarily  under  control  of  an  irresistible 
influence.  In  such  a  condition,  it  was  literally 
true,  as  he  said  :  "  If  Balak  would  give  me  his 
house  full  of  silver  and  gold,  I  cannot  go  beyond 
the  commandment  of  the  Loed,  to  do  either  good 
or  had  of  mine  own  iJiind." 

This  strange  endowment  of  genius  was,  in 
Balaam's  view,  his  property   rather  than  his 


X.]  THE    MORAL    CROSS-EYE.  197 

trust,  and  he  was  bent  on  making  what  he  could 
by  it,  without  much  scruple  about  the  way. 

Balak,  the  King  of  Moab,  was  then  in  a 
strait.  The  host  of  Israel,  in  its  march  to 
Canaan,  had  arrived  in  his  territories,  and  was 
subsisting  itself  upon  the  country.  Unable  to 
cope  by  arms,  he  resorted,  after  the  manner  of 
the  times,  to  supernatural  weapons.  His 
embassy  crossed  the  desert  to  Balaam,  and 
offered  him  a  large  retaining  fee  to  come  and 
pronounce  his  potent  curse  upon  the  invaders. 

To  this,  however,  Balaam  gave  a  positive 
refusal.  He  took  time  to  deliberate,  and  came 
to  the  conviction  that  God  was  on  the  side  of 
the  Israelites.  As  to  Balaam,  so  to  us,  it  is 
the  voice  of  conscience  which  is  the  voice  of 
God.  "  God  said  imto  liim,  Thou  shalt  not  go ; 
tliou  shalt  not  curse  the  people,  for  they  are 
blessed."  Accordingly,  he  sent  word  back, 
"  The  Lord  refuseth  to  give  me  leave  to  go." 

But  Balaam's  heart  was  not  in  his  refusal. 
He  was  willing  to  disobey  conscience,  but  not  for 
so  small  a  consideration.  This  the  ambassadors 
saw,  for  they  presently  came  back  with  a 
louder  call,  and  a  larger  fee,  and  still  larger 
promises.  Balaam's  heart  is  set  on  going,  but 
he  must  first  get  around  the  commandment, 


198  BALAAM  :  [X. 

"  Thou  sJialt  not  go  ;  "  he  must  make  it  seem 
right  to  conscience.  So  he  bids  them  wait, 
while  he  inquires  further  into  his  duty. 

The  result  was  the  usual  result  to  which 
mental  dishonesty  comes.  We  can  make  black 
and  white  change  with  each  other  if  we  are  so 
disposed.  So  African  slavery  used  to  be  justi- 
fied by  American  preachers  as  God's  appointed 
means  for  Christianising  Africans.  Balaam 
worked  on  his  conscience  like  an  ingenious 
lawyer  on  a  reluctant  jury, — precisely  as  men 
do  now,  when  they  persuade  themselves  that 
laziness  is  care  for  health,  revenge  is  justice, 
stinginess  is  prudence,  lying  a  business  neces- 
sity. And  conscience  gave  at  length  the 
desired  verdict.  Not  without  reminder,  how- 
ever, of  the  awkwardness  in  which  he  might 
be  placed  when  the  test  came,  if,  in  the 
trance-condition,  his  tongue  should  prove  un- 
able to  utter  the  curse  that  Balak  was  to  pay 
him  for:  ''God  said,  Go  with  them;  hut  only 
the  word  which  I  speak  unto  thee,  that  shalt 
thou  do'' 

On  that  risk,  notwithstanding,  Balaam  went. 
So  every  man  who  is  false  to  the  bidding  of  his 
higher  nature  goes  at  risk  of  things  alike  be- 
yond his  calculation  and  his  control. 


X.]  THE    MORAL    CROSS-EYE.  199 

It  was  on  the  journey  that  the  incident  of 
the  speaking  ass  occurred  which  has  so  unduly 
diverted  attention  from  the  moral  lessons  of  the 
story.  We  owe  it  a  word  or  two  to  relieve 
some  curious  minds. 

Our  first  duty  in  our  Bible  reading  is  to  find 
the  consistency  of  things.  If,  indeed,  the 
dumb  creature  uttered  a  human  voice,  as  the 
second  Epistle  of  Peter  remarks,  this  narrative 
becomes  most  inconsistent.  For,  in  that  case, 
we  find  Balaam,  a  professional  diviner,  and 
engaged  at  the  time  in  a  very  critical  under- 
taking in  which  he  would  be  most  alert  to 
notice  all  unfavourable  signs,  quite  unaware  of 
anything  in  his  beast  of  a  preternatural  sort. 
What  he  observes  we  must  conclude  from 
what  he  does.  He  does  only  what  any  angry 
teamster  does  vdth  a  refractory  horse.  Had 
there  been  any  so  portentous  a  prodigy  as  an  ass 
suddenly  gifted  with  human  speech  he  would 
not  so  have  done.  His  profession,  his  circum- 
stances, his  hazards,  must  have  forced  him  to 
a  very  different  behaviour.  Unless,  then,  we 
are  prepared  to  accept  a  most  surprising  and 
incredible  inconsistency  in  the  story  itself,  we 
must  regard  Balaam's  conduct  as  evincing 
nothing  more  in  the  action  of  his  beast  than  a 


200  BALAAM  :  [X. 

brute  nature  in  terror  is  capable  of.  So  the 
dumb  creatures  often  speak  to  us  by  looks  and 
cries,  inarticulately,  but  eloquently  and  in- 
telligibly. 

Conceding  this  short  digression  to  those  who 
stick  in  this  part  of  the  story,  we  must  now 
follow  Balaam  in  his  crooked  way. 

In  the  midst  of  the  unaccountable  reluctance 
of  his  ass  to  proceed,  a  strange  terror  came 
upon  him.  "  The  Lord  ope?ied  his  eyes."  As 
a  natural  clairvoyant,  he  may  well  have  seen 
in  his  way  the  hostile  apparition  that  was 
invisible  to  his  companions.  Immediately  the 
whole  question  of  conscience  which  he  fancied 
he  had  closed  was  reopened.  No  question  of 
conscience  is  ever  closed  till  it  is  settled 
rightly.  From  term  to  term  of  the  court  the 
case  is  adjourned,  and  the  costs  of  sin's- 
interminable  bill  mount  up  meanwhile — to  be 
paid  some  tune  to  the  uttermost  farthing. 
"  And  Balaam  said  u7ito  the  angel  of  the 
Lord,  I  have  sinned;  noio,  therefore,  if  it 
displease  thee,  I  will  get  me  back  again."  But 
there  was  no  if  about  it.  It  was  a  clear  case. 
Yet  Balaam  dishonestly  asks  for  more  light, 
when  his  trouble  was  that  he  already  had 
more  than  he  liked. 


X.J  THE    MORAL    CROSS-EYE.  201 

We  often  see  men  nowadays  asking  for  more 
light,  when  all  they  need  is  more  liking  for  the 
light.  Many  a  man's  mind  was  frankly  stated 
by  the  Scotchman  who  said,  "  I'm  open  to 
conviction ;  but  I'd  like  to  see  the  mon  that 
can  convince  me."  Whoever  wants  more  light 
must  walk  toward  what  light  there  is.  Balaam 
owaied,  "  I  have  sinned."  The  only  reason- 
able conclusion  was  to  stop,  and  go  back. 
But  that  would  be  decidedly  inconvenient. 
There  w^ould  be  a  scene  with  his  fellow 
travellers.  It  would  be  confessing  a  humiliat- 
ing mistake  in  starting.  He  would  seem  very 
inconsistent.  So,  as  he  had  committed  himself 
to  the  business,  he  would  go  on,  unless  God 
had  something  more  positive  to  say  against  it. 
Thus  we  find  the  will  generally  carries  the 
conscience,  and  a  dishonest  will  makes  a  false 
conscience.  A  voice  seemed  to  say,  "Go."  It 
merely  echoed  his  own  choice  to  go.  "  The 
angel  of  the  Lord  said  unto  Balaam,  Go  uith 
the  men  :  hut  only  the  word  that  I  shall  speak 
unto  thee,  that  shall  thou  speak.  So  Balaam 
went  ivith  the  princes  of  Balak."  Balaam 
chose  to  regard  it  as  a  permission.  In  fact,  it 
was  a  doom,  and  cast  shadowy  misgivings 
ahead  upon  the  incalculable  possibilities. 


202  BALAAM  :  [x. 

The  king  and  the  diviner  at  length  meet. 
In  their  first  conference  the  better  side  of 
Balaam's  nature  comes  out  for  a  moment.  It 
is  not  uncommon  for  men  to  initiate  the  most 
selfish  courses  with  the  most  upright  profes- 
sions. A  political  platform  that  proposes  an 
act  of  national  dishonour  will  begin  with  an 
appeal  to  the  principles  of  righteousness.  A 
church  meeting  that  is  to  be  spent  in  wrang- 
ling will  be  opened  with  prayer  for  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  Prophet  Micah  has  recorded  the 
lofty  utterance  of  Balaam,  when  Balak,  in  his 
distress,  declared  himself  ready  to  sacrifice 
even  the  heir  of  his  throne  to  gain  God's 
favour  for  the  nation.  "  Wherewith,"'  said 
Balak,  "  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and  how 
myself  before  the  high  God  ?  Shall  I  come 
before  Him  loith  burnt  offerings,  with  calves  of 
a  year  old  ?  Will  the  Loed  be  pleased  with 
thousands  of  rams,  or  ivith  ten  thousands  of 
rivers  of  oil  /  Shall  I  give  my  firstborn  for 
my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the 
si7i  of  my  soul  ?  "  And  Balaam  answered  : 
"  He  hath  showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good ; 
and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to 
do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God  I  " 


X.]  THE    MOEAL    CROSS-EYE.  203 

There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  Bible  that  is 
purer  spiritual  truth  than  this  voice  out  of  the 
enhghtened  conscience  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Gentile  prophets.  But  our  wonder  at  finding 
such  a  spiritual  gem  in  the  midst  of  a  heathen 
world,  and  in  connection  with  superstitious 
beliefs  and  magical  practices,  pales  before  the 
wonder  of  a  Christian  world,  so  common  that 
it  has  almost  ceased  to  excite  wonder,  in  the 
coupling  of  the  purest  theory  and  the  basest 
conduct.  We  find  it  in  men  like  Louis  XV., 
entitling  himself  "the  most  Christian  king" 
while  leading  the  life  of  a  rake  and  a  tyrant, — 
in  men  like  Kobert  Burns,  who  could  write 
sach  a  poem  of  Christian  family  life  as  "  The 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  and  also  stanzas  as 
foul  as  any  that  ever  blotted  an  English  page. 
The  same  unnatural  embrace  of  Life  and 
Death,  in  which,  as  in  the  case  of  Balaam, 
Death  comes  off  the  victor,  we  may  see  to-day. 
There  are  men  who  in  private  life  are  honour- 
able, in  politics  unscrupulous ;  devout  on 
Sundays,  on  week  days  deceitful ;  in  theology 
conservative,  in  morals  liberal.  There  are 
women  who  would  much  object  to  staying 
away  from  the  Communion  Table,  but  would 
have  no  scruple  at   retailing  hearsay  slander 


204  BALAAM  :  [x. 

over  the  tea-table.  Even  the  clergyman,  who 
ojBficiates  at  the  Table  w^ith  holy  words  in  his 
mouth  and  a  heart  full  of  adultery,  is  by  no 
means  an  unheard-of  imitator  of  Balaam's 
sin.  Alas  !  we  need  not  search  for  Balaam 
beyond  the  circle  of  our  own  acquaintance, 
perhaps  not  beyond  the  range  of  our  own 
practices.  The  double-mindedness,  the  moral 
cross-eye  of  which  Balaam  is  the  typical 
example,  appears  in  every  man  who  knows 
the  thing  that  is  right  and  does  the  thing  that 
is  wrong,  in  falseness  to  his  own  convictions 
of  truth  and  duty,  letting  the  devil  in  him 
choke  the  angel  in  him. 

Having  now  made  his  most  respectful  bow 
to  God,  Balaam  turns  to  his  trade,  intent  on 
"  the  wages  of  iniquity."  Most  picturesque  is 
the  scene  upon  the  sacred  page.  From  height 
to  height  the  king  and  the  diviner  walk,  where 
the  outlook  upon  the  fair  landscape  and  the 
vast  encampment  of  Israel  may  stir  the 
imagination  of  the  seer  and  elevate  his 
emotions  into  the  region  of  rapt  feeling,  that 
the  currents  of  the  prophetic  impulse  may 
seize  upon  him  and  carry  him  up  into  ecstasy 
and  oracle.  Thrice  did  Balaam  seek  by  solemn 
sacrifice   to   propitiate   the   Power   whom   he 


X.]  THE    MOEAL    CKOSS-EYE.  205 

could  propitiate  only  by  the  obedience  he  had 
refused.  Thrice  did  he  attempt,  with  seven 
altars,  seven  bullocks,  and  seven  rams,  to 
modify  the  original  commandment,  "  Tliou 
shalt  not  curse  them,  for  they  are  blessed." 
Thrice  the  prophetic  rapture  came  upon  him, 
as  he  gazed  upon  the  enchanting  view ;  thrice 
he  fell  prostrate  under  the  overmastering  spell 
of  power ;  and  thrice  the  tongue  that  craved 
to  curse  was  compelled  to  bless. 

And  can  he  choose  but  fear, 

Who  feels  his  God  so  near. 
That  when  he  fain  would  curse,  his  powerless  tongue 

In  blessing  only  moves  ? — 

Alas  !  the  world  he  loves 
Too  close  around  his  heart  her  tangling  veil  hath  flung. 

Wonderful  is  Balaam's  forecast  of  the  course 
of  history,  grand  his  diction,  as  he  prophesies 
to  Balak  the  ascendant  "  Star"  of  Jacob,  the 
dominating  "  Sceptre  "  of  Israel,  and  presages 
the  successive  rise  of  the  great  Eastern  and 
Western  powers. 

He  watch'd  till  knowledge  came 

Upon  his  soul  like  flame. 
Not  of  those  magic  fires  at  random  caught : 

But  true  prophetic  light 

Flash'd  o'er  him,  high  and  bright, 
Flash'd   once,   and   died   away,   and  left   his   darken'd 
thought. 


206  BALAAM  :  [x. 

If  we  wonder  at  this  gift  of  prophecy  in 
a  bad  man's  lips,  we  are  to  remember  that 
prophetic  genius  for  forecasting  history  is 
like  scientific  genius  for  divining  the  laws  of 
nature — an  intellectual  gift,  quite  capable  of 
coexisting  with  moral  obliquity.  More  won- 
derful than  any  prophecy  is  that  union  in 
which  the  grandeur  and  the  baseness  of  which 
a  man  is  capable  are  here  exhibited.  As 
Balaam  pictures  the  fleeting  glories  of  earth, 
the  abiding  glory  of  righteousness  rises  before 
him,  and  words  flow  from  his  lips  that  have 
been  consecrated  for  ever  to  the  expression  of 
Christian  hope  :  ''Let  me  die  the  death  of  the 
righteous,  and  let  my  last  end  he  like  his."  Yet 
he  hankers  still  after  the  wages  of  unrighteous- 
ness. And  when  Balak  proposes  to  make 
another  trial  at  cursing,  on  a  hill-top  where 
there  is  no  grand  and  ravishing  prospect  to 
excite  a  prophecy  of  Israel's  greatness,  but 
only  the  fag-end  of  their  camp,  Balaam 
willingly  renews  the  unscrupulous  attempt, 
Keble  has  portrayed  it  in  his  well-known 
hymn  for  the  second  Sunday  after  Easter, 
already  quoted : 

O  for  a  sculptor's  hand, 
That  thou  might'st  take  thy  stand. 
Thy  wild  hair  floating  on  the  eastern  breeze. 


X.]  THE    MORAL    CROSS-EYE.  207 

Thy  tranc'd  yet  open  gaze 
Fix'd  on  tbe  desert  haze. 
As  one  who  deep  in  heaven  some  airy  pageant  sees. 

In  outline  dim  and  vast 

Their  fearful  shadows  cast 
The  giant  forms  of  empires  on  their  way 

To  ruin  :  one  by  one 

They  tower  and  they  are  gone. 
Yet  in  the  Prophet's  soid  the  dreams  of  avarice  stay. 

— the  same  avarice  that  spotted  the  ermine 
and  the  wisdom  of  Lord  Bacon,  Chancellor  of 
England,  foremost  philosopher  of  his  time, 
with  the  ignominy  of  bribes,  and  put  him  in 
history's  pillory,  where  Pope  taunts  him  as 

The  wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind. 

0  how  great  is  man  !  0  how  base  is  man  ! 
But  let  him  that  is  without  sin  be  the  man  to 
stone  Balaam,  We,  too,  are  of  the  same  clay. 
Are  we  not  all  in  danger  of  this  self-imposture 
of  imagining  that  a  bow  to  God  is  rehgion 
enough,  and  our  trade  no  requisite  part  of 
God's  service  ?  Are  we  not  all  in  danger  of 
mistaking  the  religion  of  gush  for  the  religion 
of  duty?  Too  often  are  men  satisfied  with 
devoutly  wishing  to  die  the  death  of  the 
righteous,  while  wilHng  to  live  the  unrighteous 
life  of  contradiction  to  sacred  convictions. 
Full  often  there  flies  at  the  masthead  a  flag  of 


208  BALAAM  :  [x. 

profession  as  honourable  and  godly  as  Balaam's, 
while  the  voice  of  command  and  the  hand  at 
the  wheel  are  as  selfish  and  base  as  the  lust  of 
money  can  make  a  miser  or  a  pirate. 

We  are  near  the  end  of  the  story,  but  there 
is  one  more  step  of  degradation  in  Balaam's 
way  to  his  doom.  Balak,  in  the  rage  of  his 
disappointment,  bade  him  go  home.  But 
Balaam,  having  come  so  far,  did  not  mean 
to  lose  his  fee,  whatever  else  he  lost.  He 
made  his  humble  apology  to  Balak.  His  will 
was  good  enough,  but  he  had  lacked  power. 
The  irresistible  influence  that  came  upon  him 
in  the  trance  had  forced  him  to  speak  other- 
wise than  he  wished  to.  But  he  could  do 
better.  Cool-headed  policy,  dictated  by  his 
own  intelligence,  was  more  reliable  than  the 
mysterious  power  that  took  his  self-control 
away.  Like  Faust  selling  himself  to  the  evil 
one,  he  sold  himself  to  Balak  to  bring  about 
in  immediate  effect  that  curse  of  Israel  which 
he  had  been  unable  to  put  into  words.  The 
plot  formed  by  this  man  of  so  heavenly  know- 
ledge was  worthy  of  demoniac  malice. 

Balak's  nation,  like  other  Arab  tribes,  wor- 
shipped an  idol,  called  "  Baal-Peor,"  with 
orgies    of     beastly     licentiousness.       Balaam 


X.]  THE    MOEAL   CKOSS-ETE.  209 

counselled  to  invite  the  Israelites  to  take 
part  in  these  orgies.  The  baser  part  would 
comply  ;  the  weaker  part  would  be  drawn  in  ; 
the  Divine  wrath  would  follow.  Out  of  the 
carnival  of  lust  would  come  riot  and  revolu- 
tion, and  a  reverse  of  that  glorious  destiny  he 
had  prophesied.  This  would  not  injure  his 
credit  as  a  prophet,  and  the  money  would  at 
last  be  his. 

This  damnable    device   was    adopted,    but 
Balaam,  like  many  other  malicious  gunners, 
suffered  more  by  the  recoil  than  his  mark  by 
the  projectile.     At  first  it  seemed  as  if  the  pit 
of  ruin  yawned  underneath  the  Hebrew  camp. 
The   people   swarmed   around    the   vile   altar 
where   worship   was  offered    by  prostitution. 
"Israel  joined    himself  unto  Baal-Feor    and 
the  anger   of  the    Lord  was  kindled  against 
Israel."     But  Balaam,    like  every  other  man 
who  fails  to  reckon  God  among  the  factors  of 
a  result,  had  taken  no  account  of  the  sacred 
fire.     In  the  breast  of  the  Jewish  nation,  as  in 
the  bush  where  glowed  the  unearthly  fire  that 
Moses  saw,  there  has  burned  from  the  first  a 
religious   zeal,  sometimes  waning  to  a  single 
spark  in  some  lone   Elijah,    and     sometimes 
mounting  in  tongues  of  devouring  flame,  as  in 


210  BALAAM  :  [X. 

the  patriots  of  the  Maccabean  revolution. 
This  sacred  fire  now  blazed  forth  in  the  hand- 
ful of  choice  spirits  that  rallied  around  Moses. 
The  desperate  situation  was  retrieved  by- 
desperate  means.  Sword  in  hand,  these  fierce 
Puritans  hurled  themselves,  as  God's  avengers, 
upon  the  voluptuous  multitude.  Conscience- 
stricken,  panic-stricken,  they  fell  in  their 
blood.  The  plot  had  failed.  The  plot  was  to  be 
avenged.  The  nation  that  had  seemed  falling 
to  pieces  was  reconsolidated  in  a  grand  crusade 
against  the  idolatrous  altars  that  had  wrought 
such  suffering.  The  record  of  the  victory 
closes  the  list  of  the  illustrious  slain  with  the 
most  detested  name  :  "  Balaam,  also,  the  son 
of  Beor,  they  sleio  loith  the  swords  If  he  got 
his  money,  the  ill-gotten  money  perished  with 
him.  The  dazzling  comet  that  had  so  sud- 
denly blazed  out  in  the  eastern  sky  as  sud- 
denly disappears — "  a  wandering  star,'"  says 
the  Apostle,  going  out  into  "  the  blackness  of 
darkness." 

The  moral  has  run  along  with  the  story. 
With  the  occult  problems  which  it  raises  as 
to  things  as  yet  equally  beyond  science  and 
revelation,  we  now  have  nothing  to  do  in  our 


X.]  THE    MOEAL   CROSS-EYE.  211 

quest  for  moral  and  practical  lessons.  Most 
conspicuously  of  any  Biblical  character 
Balaam  illustrates  that  monstrous  self-decep- 
tion to  which  every  man  makes  himself  liable 
who  puts  his  conscience  not  in  the  saddle  but 
under  it,  to  be  ridden  by  an  unrighteous 
desire.  Under  such  treatment  of  conscience 
a  man  upsets  his  moral  balance  and  makes 
himself  a  moral  lunatic,  responsible  for  his 
craze  and  its  consequences.  But  at  the  final 
coming  to  one's  self,  when  conscience,  as  she 
surely  will,  regains  her  seat,  what  judt:(ment 
more  consuming  than  to  realise  that  the  pure 
knowledge  and  the  foul  practice  were  both 
our  own,  and  that  we  ourselves,  with  open 
eyes,  sacrificed  the  angel  to  the  fiend  !  This 
is  "  the  loorm  that  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  that 
is  not  quenched.''' 


XL 

THE  ADVENT   OF  THE   CHRIST. 


XI. 

THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  CHRIST. 

"  I  come  quickly.  Amen  :  come,  Lord  Jesus." — Revelatioa 
xxii.  20. 

It  is  more  than  eighteen  hundred  years  since 
these  words  were  penned,  a  Divine  promise 
and  a  Christian  prayer.  For  eighteen  hundred 
years  that  prayer  has  been  constantly  repeated, 
"  Come,  Lord  Jesus."  For  eighteen  hundred 
years  that  promise  has  been  receiving  fulfil- 
ment. Its  last  word,  "  quicklij,"  has  not  been 
at  fault. 

When  Jesus  died.  He  had  certainly  come  to 
no  great  number  of  men,  and  to  no  great 
influence  in  the  world.  But,  by  and  since  His 
death.  He  has  certainly  been  coming  to  men  in 
a  growing  power,  as  Teacher,  and  Leader,  and 
Lord.  To  new  races,  new  lands,  new  condi- 
tions  of   society,    He  has   been   coming  in  a 

Preached  in  Lower    Edmonton   Independent  Church, 
Sunday  Morning,  September  9,  1888. 


216      THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  CHEIST.     [XI. 

growing  authority,  as  a  growing  light,  infusing 
a  growing  influence  into  thought  and  conduct. 
This  is  still  going  on,  and  will  continue  to  go 
on.  More  and  more  in  the  future,  as  in  the 
past,  is  Christ  to  come  into  control  of  men's 
minds  and  lives.  We  so  judge  from  experience. 
What  has  been  will  be. 

What  Jesus  has  manifestly  done  is  manifestly 
what  He  promised  to  do.  And  as  there  is 
much  more  to  be  done,  we  may  expect  that  it 
will  be  done.  The  prayer,  "  Come,  Lord  Jesus" 
is  as  appropriate  now  as  originally.  The 
promise,  "  I  come  quickly  "  is  guaranteed  by 
its  progressive  fulfilment  thus  far.  We  pray 
and  strive  for  the  complete  fulfilment  both  of 
the  promise  and  the  prayer  through  an  Advent 
of  Christ  continuously  advancing  to  His  com- 
plete ascendancy,  when  He  shall  have  filled  the 
world,  and  filled  individual  life,  with  His 
spiritual  power  in  righteousness  and  peace. 

For  eighteen  hundred  years  the  Advent  of 
Christ  has  been  a  fond  object  of  Christian 
thought  and  hope.  And  yet  there  is  still  no 
small  perplexity  and  delusion  in  regard  to  it. 
Surely  on  this  subject  a  clear  mind  is  greatly 
to  be  desired.  On  the  threshold  of  our  inquiry 
stands  the  question.  What  was  it  for  that  He 


XI.]  THE    ADVENT    OF   THE    CHRIST.  217 

came  into  the  world  as  a  babe  ?  It  was  to  lay 
a  foundation,  in  the  actual  facts  of  an  earthly 
existence,  for  His  effectual  coming  into  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life  of  men.  In  order  to 
do  this,  He  must  be  born,  must  experience  the 
common  lot  of  men,  have  a  historical  career, 
and  die.  We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  His 
Advent,  when  we  mean  only  His  birth.  This, 
however,  was  but  the  preparation  for  His  real 
Advent,  which  is  not  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the 
spirit.  People  speak  of  His  "  second  "  Advent, 
when  they  mean  a  future  coming  at  "  the  end 
of  the  world."  But  in  reahty  the  so-called 
"second  Advent"  is  to  be  looked  for  much 
nearer  than  that.  It  is  to  be  recognised  in 
His  spiritual  coming  as  the  Eenewer  of  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  men.  If  we  call  it  the 
"  second,"  to  distinguish  it  from  His  coming 
into  the  world  at  birth,  we  must  still  remember, 
what  is  generally  overlooked,  that  the  only 
real  Advent  of  Christ  is  not  a  physical  event 
but  a  spiritual  process.  It  belongs  to  the 
world  of  thought  and  feeling,  not  to  the  world 
of  the  five  senses.  It  is  His  entrance  into  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the  world.  When 
this  has  taken  place,  there  is  no  other  advent 
to  be  expected.     So  far  as  this  has  not  fully 


218  THE    ADVENT   OF   THE    CHBIST.  [xi. 

taken  place,  we  look  for  more  and  more  of  it  in 
the  future,  as  in  the  past.  Thus  the  promise 
still  holds  for  us  as  for  the  first  disciples, 
"I  come  quickly;  "  and  it  still  calls  forth 
the    responsive   prayer,    "Amen:   come,   Lord 


"  Quickly,''  said  Jesus.  Has  it  indeed  been 
so?  Is  not  this  a  staple  scoff  of  scepticism, 
that  eighteen  hundred  years  have  passed  since 
the  angels  sang,  "  Peace  on  earth  to  men  of 
good  zvill,"  and  yet  to-day  sees  the  Christian 
nations  of  Europe  armed  to  the  teeth  against 
each  other,  and  Churches  that  celebrate  the 
birth  of  Christ  still  divided  and  hostile,  as 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  and  almost  within 
hearing  of  the  cathedral  choirs  festering  masses 
of  as  squalid  barbarism  as  can  be  found  on 
earth?  ''Quickly" :  how  can  we  vindicate 
that  word  as  the  word  of  truth  ?  How  can  we 
hold  to  it  without  disappointment  ?  The 
answer  cannot  be  put  briefly,  but  it  can  be  put 
convincingly.  It  is  many  thousands  of  years 
since  man  came  into  the  world,  and  there  are 
still  wildernesses  waiting  for  the  coming  of 
man.  Not  more  strange  is  it,  that  there  are 
moral  desolations  still  waiting  for  the  coming 
of  the  Divine  Son  of  man. 


XI.]     THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  CHRIST.     *219 

Nevertheless  the  promise,  "  I  come  guickly" 
has  been  verified  in  history.  In  less  than  forty 
years  after  these  words  were  written,  we  find 
surprising  testimony  borne  to  them  in  the 
letter  of  a  Eoman  governor,  Pliny,  to  the 
Emperor  Trajan.  In  his  remote  province  of 
Bithynia,  Pliny  finds  that  a  new  power  has 
drawn  away  from  the  heathen  temples  "  many 
of  every  age  and  rank,  and  of  both  sexes,  not 
only  in  the  cities  but  in  the  country  districts," 
so  that  the  temples  are  nearly  deserted ;  and 
this,  he  reports,  was  a  new  power  in  the  minds 
of  men,  which  expressed  itself  mainly  in  greater 
purity  of  life.  What  took  place  there  took 
place  in  greater  or  less  degree  all  over  the 
Eoman  world  of  that  day.  The  fact  attests 
the  promise,  "  I  come  quickly."  The  beginning 
was  immediate,  although  the  process  has  been 
long. 

Here,  then,  another  word  of  Jesus  claims 
notice.  He  evidently  expected  to  be  long  in 
the  process  of  His  coming,  although  im- 
mediate in  its  beginning.  "  Think  ye,"  said 
He,  "  that  I  am  come  to  give  peace  on 
earth  /  I  tell  you,  Nay  ;  but  rather  division  : 
for  there  shall  be  from  henceforth  five  in 
one  house  divided,  three   against  two,  and  two 


220  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  [XI. 

against  three."  Division  first,  in  order  to 
peace  ultimately. 

Suppose  I  were  to  show  you  a  glass  of  lime- 
water.  It  is  transparent,  but  it  is  not  pure 
water.  Suppose  you  pass  into  it  a  jet  of 
carbonic-acid  gas.  Instantly  the  transparent 
water  becomes  turbid  with  a  white  cloud.  The 
acid  separates  the  lime  from  the  water,  joins 
itself  to  the  lime,  and  changes  it  into  carbonate 
of  lime,  the  molecules  of  which  make  the 
white  cloud.  Let  it  stand  awhile,  and  they 
will  settle  at  the  bottom  as  a  powder.  Now 
that  the  division  has  taken  place,  with  all  this 
temporary  disturbance  separating  the  lime  and 
the  water,  the  water  becomes  clear  again,  and 
now  it  is  j)ure. 

Thus,  wherever  Christ  comes  as  a  purifying 
spirit,  the  first  effect  is  disturbance  and  division. 
The  world  is  disturbed,  the  soul  is  disturbed, 
until  the  evil  in  them  is  separated  from  them. 
And  while  this  is  going  on  we  cry  impatiently, 
"  How  long  !  "     For  long  it  is. 

And  yet  why  so  long  ?  Eighteen  hundred 
years,  and  so  much  evil  still  remaining  unex- 
pelled  !  The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  It  is 
not  that  evil  men  are  obstinate,  so  much  as 
good   men  unwise.      The  believers  in  Christ 


XL]  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  221 

have  hindered  His  coming  and  thwarted  His 
work  far  more  than  the  unbehevers. 

It  was  an  early  and  a  mischievous  mistake, 
that  pohtical  influence  might  further  Christ's 
spiritual  mission.  Then  the  State  formed 
close  alliance  with  the  Church.  One  must  be 
in  fellowship  with  the  Church  to  be  in  favour 
at  Court.  To  this  day,  in  most  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  this  alliance  is  maintained,  which 
more  than  anything  else  has  made  Christianity 
a  sham  and  a  shame,  through  the  hypocrisy 
produced  in  some  and  the  enmity  roused  in 
others, — yet  all  with  good  intent  by  unwise 
believers  in  Christ. 

Another  equally  unhappy  stumbling-block 
to  the  progress  of  Christ's  Advent  in  the 
world  was  the  notion  that  early  gained  a  place 
from  which  it  has  not  yet  been  expelled,  that 
anti-Christian  error,  or  what  was  so  regarded, 
should  be  visited  with  penalities  in  outward 
suffering,  as  by  exile,  imprisonment,  death,  or, 
as  in  these  less  violent  days,  by  ostracism  and 
social  disrepute.  And  so  it  came  about  that, 
whatever  fallacy  or  mistake  had  crept  into 
Christian  thought  or  practice,  it  could  not  be 
corrected ;  to  touch  it  was  sacrilege ;  the  fire 
was  lighted  for  the  reformer.     Go,  stand  upon 


222  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  [xi. 

the  Thames  Embankment  before  the  statue  of 
William  Tyndale,  martyred  for  translating  the 
Bible  into  our  English  tongue,  and  there  reflect 
what  religious  persecution,  protecting  religious 
delusion,  has  done  to  delay  the  Advent  of  the 
Christ. 

If  we  ask.  Why  had  it  to  be  so  ?  we  have  to 
answer  just  as  we  answer  the  question.  Why 
have  men  been  allowed  for  ages  to  perish  by 
deaths  that  were  preventable,  until  they  dis- 
cover how  to  prevent  them  ?  It  is  the  way  of 
God,  that  men  must  learn  by  experience.  And 
this,  the  only  thorough  way,  is  a  long  way. 
So  much  the  slower  is  the  Advent  of  the  Lord, 
until  His  wilhng  but  unwise  helpers  learn  not 
to  hinder  Him. 

Yet  one  more  hindrance,  which  from  the 
beginning  until  now  His  would-be  helpers 
have  cast  in  the  way,  is  the  notion — of  which 
we  especially  must  beware — that  thought  and 
understanding  are  of  primary  importance  in 
His  work,  rather  than  feeling  and  affection. 
What  has  been  the  consequence  of  this 
mistake?  The  very  basis  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship and  co-operation  in  a  common  love  to 
Christ  has  been  lost  among  the  differences  of 
Christian  intellects.      Christian   strength  that 


XI.]  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  223 

should  have  been  used  in  alHance  for  the 
common  cause  has  been  wasted  in  divisive 
wrangling  about  theories.  Far  worse  even  than 
this,  and  a  much  more  fatal  obstacle  to  the  pro- 
gress of  Christ's  spirit,  zeal  for  orthodoxy  has 
taken  the  place  of  zeal  for  righteousness  and 
charity.  Theology  has  been  more  esteemed 
than  morality  and  humanity.  And  so  men 
who  would  have  accepted  Christianity  had  it 
been  presented  in  its  true  character  as  spirit 
and  life,  have  rejected  it  when  presented  as  a 
dogma,  not  only  often  repulsive  to  reason  and 
feeling,  but  often  dishonoured  by  the  profligacy 
or  the  barbarity  of  its  false  professors. 

Oh,  it  is  no  wonder  that  our  Lord,  however 
quickly  He  began  to  fulfil  His  promise,  "  I 
come,"  has  been  so  long  in  fulfilling  it,  while 
His  nominal  helpers  have  so  interferred  with 
the  work  of  His  purifying  Spirit  in  expelling 
evil  from  the  world.  So  much  of  the  devil  has 
gone  into  theology  ;  so  much  of  the  inhumanity 
of  man  has  been  ascribed  in  the  creeds  to  God, 
and  has  been  perpetrated  by  professedly 
Christian  men  in  the  name  of  God.  And  this 
strange  mixture  of  heathen  and  Christian  in 
the  popular  dogmas  and  practices  of  the 
Church  has  been  offered  to  men  as  Christ's 


224  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHEIST.  [XI. 

grace  and  truth  !  Not  strange  is  their  scepti- 
cism at  that.  But,  strange,  indeed,  to  doubt 
the  promise  of  Jesus,  rather  than  the  intelh- 
gence  of  those  who  have  so  hindered  its  fulfil- 
ment. 

Especially  strange  is  any  question  as  to  the 
present  reahty  of  Christ's  promised  Advent, 
when,  despite  these  formidable  hindrances,  it 
has  already  made  such  actual  progress.  "We 
have  simply  to  ask.  What  sort  of  principles 
and  influences  have  been,  on  the  whole, 
gaining  ground  and  power  in  the  world  ? 
What  one  name  in  the  world  has  been  win- 
ning recognition  and  authority  more  than  any 
other  ?  Even  infidelity  has  changed  its  tone, 
and  has  learned  to  mention  the  Name  of  Jesus 
only  with  respect.  Far  as  the  world  may  yet 
be  from  the  full  recognition  of  the  spiritual 
sovereignty  of  Christ,  we  can  see  that  the 
course  of  things  has  gone  far  that  way.  We 
can  see  that  He  has  been  coming  into  a  wider 
control  as  the  moral  Leader,  as  the  Judge 
who  rights  wrongs,  as  the  Lawgiver  who  is 
obeyed. 

Is  it  not  to  be  reckoned  as  an  effectual 
Advent  of  Christ  to  His  spiritual  throne, 
whenever  Christian  principles  come  to  power  ? 


XL]  THE    ADVENT   OF   THE    CHEIST.  225 

This  is  what  we   have  seen  in  the  growing 
conviction  that  reHgious  persecution  is  wrong, 
and  in  the  large,  though    not   yet   complete, 
tolerance  shown  to  men  who  once  would  have 
been  burned   for   their   opinions.     When    the 
delusion   that   cursed   the   world    during    the 
gloomy  ages  which  believed  in  witchcraft  came 
to  an  end,  and  the  superstition  was  broken  up 
which  had  consigned  myriads  of  hapless  and 
helpless  creatures  to  death   because   of  their 
supposed  partnership  Avith  supposed  devils,  it 
was  a   real  Advent  of  Christ  in  the  spirit  of 
humane  intelligence.     When   the   cruel   laws 
were  abolished  which  hanged  httle   children 
for  petty  thefts  ;  when  criminals  began  to  be 
treated  less  as  vermin  to  be  destroyed,  and 
more  as  men  to  be  reformed ;  when  the  educa- 
tion  which  had  been  the  privilege  of  a  few 
began  to  be  opened  to  the  many ;  when  the 
insane,  who  had  been  treated  as  wild  beasts  to 
be  caged,  began  to  be  compassionated  as  sick 
neighbours  to  be   healed  ;   when  government, 
which  had  been  wielded  in  the  interests  of  the 
great,  began  to  be  employed  in  behalf  of  the 
humble ;  when  slaves  were   made   free  men  ; 
when  war  began   to  exempt  non-combatants 
from   destruction,    and    arbitration    began   to 

15 


226  THE    ADVENT    OF  THE    CHRIST.  [xi. 

take  the  place  of  the  sword  ; — there  was  in 
every  instance  an  actual  and  effectual  gain  of 
moral  power.  In  this  there  was  a  real  pro- 
gress of  principles  clearly  Christian.  In  this 
there  was  a  clear  advance  in  the  progressive 
Advent  of  Christ  toward  ultimate  sovereignty 
as  the  Lawgiver  of  the  world.  Most  manifest 
has  this  been  in  the  modern  development  of 
a  philanthropy  so  wide,  that  even  the  dumb 
animals  have  their  share  of  benefit,  and  in  the 
spread  of  Christian  missions,  together  with 
the  humane  ministry  of  Christian  physicians, 
into  every  part  of  the  heathen  world.  The 
Gospel  story  of  Jesus'  cures  of  the  lepers,  the 
blind,  the  paralytics,  seems  to  be  repeated  in 
our  time.  The  advent  of  the  medical  healer 
of  "  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,"  in  the  train 
of  the  Christian  missionary,  is  but  one  of  many 
signs  of  the  progressive  Advent  of  the  Son  of 
man. 

But  all  this  is  recent,  mostly  within  a  cen- 
tury. Why  so  recent?  Why  this  waiting, 
this  tardy  coming  of  the  Christ,  this  late 
growing  of  the  Christian  spirit  to  power  ? 
Why  might  it  not  have  been  at  least  a  thou- 
sand years  earlier  in  its  beneficent  conquests  ? 
We   have    already   taken    note    of   the    bin- 


XI.]  THE   ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  227 

drances  created  by  the  mistakes  of  Christian 
men.  Besides  these,  we  must  now  make 
account  of  the  hindrance  due  to  pohtical 
convulsions. 

The  world  into  which  Jesus  was  born  was  a 
decaying  world.  Its  breed  of  men  had  dege- 
nerated. Its  liberties  had  perished.  Its 
heroes  were  dead.  Its  vigour  was  exhausted 
by  luxury  on  one  side  and  slavery  on  the 
other.  How  little  progress  Christianity  could 
make  in  such  a  world,  is  illustrated  by  that 
which  survives  of  it  among  the  debased 
churches  of  the  Greek  Communion,  the 
Kussian,  Armenian,  Syriac,  Coptic.  In  that 
decaying  world  Christianity  was  sown  like 
wheat  among  the  falling  leaves  of  autumn. 
Hardly  had  it  struck  root,  ere  a  wintry 
period  closed  in  and  checked  its  growth  as 
under  snow  and  ice.  A  deluge  of  barbarian 
invasions  —  Goths,  Huns,  Vandals,  Franks, 
and  Saxons — poured  over  Europe.  The  clock 
of  history  was  set  back  a  thousand  years. 
The  old  barbaric  strife  for  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  set  in  again  in  centuries  of  war 
and  violence.  Thus  a  new  world,  as  it  were, 
raw  and  refractory,  was  created  for  the  Advent 
of  the  Son  of  man.     And  such  a  world  it  was, 


228     THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  CHRIST.     [XI. 

which  had  for  apostles  of  that  Advent  only 
men  who  held  the  crucifix  in  one  hand  and 
the  sword  in  the  other,  compliant  allies  of 
barbarian  king;s,  presenting  to  the  nations  a 
mysterious  creed  and  magical  sacraments 
and  the  terrors  of  purgatory,  but  no  real 
Christ. 

Indeed,  it  was  not  the  Church  which  did 
most  to  prepare  the  way  of  Christ  to  the  wait- 
ing nations.  It  was  the  industrial  spirit  which 
most  effectively  combated  the  military  spirit, 
and  thawed  away  the  winter  of  barbarism.  It 
was  commerce  and  art  and  education  which 
roused  thought  into  search  for  truth,  and  made 
ready  a  people  prepared  for  the  Christ  who 
came  in  the  spiritual  power  of  reformers  like 
Wyclif  and  Hus  and  Luther.  That  industry 
and  commerce,  that  art  and  education,  which 
at  length  broke  up  that  barbarian  winter  of 
a  thousand  years,  when  the  Christianity 
which  had  been  sown  as  winter  wheat  in 
autumn  sprang  up  again  as  in  April,  must  be 
reckoned  as  among  the  "  angels,"  or  ministers, 
of  whom  Jesus  spoke  when  He  said,  "The  Son 
of  man  shall  send  fortli  His  angels,  and  they 
shall  gather  out  of  His  kingdom  all  tilings  that 
cause  stumbling .'^ 


XI.]  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  229 

A  gi-eat  clearing  of  Christian  thought  and 
nerving  of  Christian  effort  depend  on  our 
recovery  of  this  great  truth  of  the  Advent 
from  its  long  and  disastrous  eclipse.  The  real 
Advent  of  Christ  is  His  coming  in  spiritual 
power  rather  than  in  outward  form.  "We 
should  cease  expecting  a  miraculous  display  to 
the  senses,  and  look  for  Christ  in  the  touching 
of  hearts  and  influencing  of  thoughts.  And 
this,  be  it  noticed,  is  in  no  narrow  circle  of 
ideas.  All  truth  belongs  to  Christ.  Every 
Interest  of  humanity  is  the  interest  of  the 
Divine  Son  of  man.  Every  discovery,  which 
widens  the  range  of  knowledge  and  power,  is 
in  His  service.  Every  science,  every  art,  is 
one  of  the  many  "angels"  that  fulfil  His 
work,  and  promote  His  Advent  as  the  Ee- 
deemer  of  the  world  from  every  kind  of  evil. 
So  Dean  Stanley  thought  when  he  said, 
"  Whatever  is  good  science  is  good  theology  ; 
whatever  is  high  morality  and  pure  civilisation 
is  high  and  pure  religion."  Complete  Chris- 
tianity is  identical  with  complete  humanity. 
The  protests  of  some  sceptics  against  Chris- 
tianity are,  in  fact,  protests  only  against  a 
narrow  conception  of  Christianity  and  of 
Christ. 


230  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHRIST.  [XI. 

From  our  survey  of  the  past  we  also  may 
learn  how  we  are  to  promote  the  true  Advent 
of  Christ  to  His  throne  of  power  in  the  world. 
We  have  seen  that  it  has  been  hindered  by 
narrow  notions  about  it.  Men  have  said,  It 
is  not  to  be  in  our  day  ;  and  have  neglected 
to  open  the  doors.  Men  have  said,  It  is 
not  to  be  unless  we  can  put  down  heresy 
and  infidelity ;  and  have  devoted  themselves 
to  writing  big  books  of  controversy  and  thun- 
dering against  unbelievers,  while  they  allowed 
slavery  and  war  and  prostitution  and  intem- 
perance to  flourish.  Men  have  said.  It  can 
only  be  through  great  revivals  of  religion  ;  and 
have  contented  themselves  with  praying 
for  the  Holy  Spirit  and  preaching  theology, 
while  conscience  remained  without  instruction 
in  the  morality  of  common  life  and  business 
and  politics  were  left  without  the  range  of 
Christian  interests.  In  consequence,  we  have 
seen  the  strongest  antagonists  of  this  narrow 
form  of  Christianity  gaining  great  credit  as 
the  apostles  of  social  reform  and  of  ethical 
culture,  and  making  a  plausible  boast  that 
they,  rather  than  the  Church  of  Christ,  cared 
most  for  public  morals  and  social  justice.  And 
we  have  even  seen  this  boast  sustained  by  the 


XI.]  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHEIST.  231 

unwisdom  of  Christian  people,  who  have  ap- 
phed  to  such  reformers  outside  the  Church 
the  epithets  of  "morahst"  and  "humani- 
tarian," as  terms  of  reproach,  although  such 
words  are  among  the  terms  of  a  truly  Christian 
glory.  Only  by  avoiding  such  narrowness, 
whether  within  or  without  the  Church,  can  we 
promote  the  effectual  Advent  of  Christ,  in  the 
fuller  sovereignty  and  wider  application  of  His 
spirit  to  the  remedy  of  every  wrong,  the 
shaming  of  every  lie  and  fraud,  and  the 
casting  out  of  devils  generally. 

But,  brethren,  let  us  judge  ourselves  in  this 
matter.  Would  we  shut  our  pulpit  against 
any  recognised  Christian  minister  on  the 
ground  that  he  is  not  of  our  theological  school? 
Would  we,  for  instance,  think  it  unwise  or 
unsafe  to  invite  such  an  undoubted  man  of 
God  as  the  truly  reverend  James  Martineau 
to  give  us  in  this  place  a  Christian  message, 
on  the  ground  that  "he  is  a  Unitarian"? 
Observe,  I  do  not  ask  whether  we  would  have 
such  an  one  for  our  constant  minister,  but 
only  this :  Would  we  debar  him  from  any 
entrance  as  a  rare  and  unusual  visitor?  I 
trust  not.  Be  assured,  my  friends,  the  true 
test  of  Christian  fellowship  is  not  in  dogma 


232  THE    ADVEKT    OF    THE    CHEIST.  [xi. 

but  in  spirit,  not  in  the  creed  but  in  the 
spiritual  life.  The  hymns  of  such  men  are  in 
our  hymn  books.  It  was  a  Unitarian  who 
gave  us  the  hymn, 

In  the  Cross  of  Christ  I  glory. 

Even  those  worship  with  such  men  in  spiritual 
songs  who  will  not  worship  with  them  in  any 
other  way,  or  tolerate  their  presence  as 
preachers  of  Christian  duty. 

But  such  narrowness  can  only  hinder  the 
Advent  of  Christ  in  His  catholic  and  inclusive 
sympathy  with  all  that  is  true  and  good, 
wherever  found.  We  are  to  make  the  most- 
of  the  grounds  of  alliance  vnth  all  who  bear 
the  Christian  name.  When  we  make  the 
most  of  the  grounds  of  division,  we  commit 
the  one  great  and  ancient  error  which,  as 
much  as  any,  has  thus  far  hindered  the 
effectual  Advent  of  Christ  as  the  Leader  of  a 
host  that  is  variously  regimented,  but  yet  is 
one  host,  and  is  all  His.  Let  us,  then,  look 
to  ourselves,  lest  by  a  zeal  without  know- 
ledge and  without  love  we  should  hinder  the 
true  Advent  of  the  Christ. 

Finally,   be    it    remembered    that    Christ's 


XI.]  THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    CHEIST.  233 

promised  Advent  is  not  an  event,  but  a  pro- 
cess. It  belongs  not  to  a  single  day,  but  to 
the  course  of  the  centuries.  It  is  no  such  fact 
as  may  be  reserved  for  a  merely  annual  com- 
memoration on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December. 
It  is  the  ever-present  fact  which,  more  than 
any  other,  has  to  do  with  the  redemption  of 
common  life  from  triviality  and  waste.  It  is 
the  daily  interest  of  a  world  in  which  a 
Divine  Light  and  a  Divine  Life  are  steadily 
though  slowly  unfolding,  the  daily  concern  of 
all  who  hope  and  pray,  "  Thy  Kingdom 
come." 

In  our  aspirations  to  be  better  than  we  are, 
Christ  comes  to  us  to-day.  In  every  conquest 
of  our  worse  nature  by  our  better,  Christ 
comes  to  us  more  fully.  He  comes  in  every 
new  interest  and  effort  for  more  truth,  more 
humanity,  more  justice  and  charity.  He 
comes  in  every  deepening  of  conviction  that 
the  true  gain  and  glory  of  our  life  are  in  the 
identification  of  our  interests  with  the  pro- 
gress of  His  Sovereignty  in  us  and  over  all. 
Thus  thinking,  let  us  pray  for  His  Advent  to 
appear  in  greater  kindliness  in  the  home, 
conscientiousness  in  the  daily  task,  helpful- 
ness toward  the  weak  and  ignorant,  catholic 


234  THE    ADVENT   OF    THE    CHEIST.  [XI. 

sympathies  with  Christian  brethren,  zealous 
care  for  private  and  puhHc  righteousness. 
Thus  praying,  let  the  endeavour  of  our  life 
agree  with  the  time-hallowed  prayer:  "Ame?i: 
come,  Lord  Jesus." 


XII. 

THE    WORLD'S  BALANCE-WHEEL. 


XII. 

THE    WORLD'S    BALANCE-WHEEL. 

"Thou Shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as i/iysel/."— Matthew xxii.  39. 

In  these  plain  words  our  Lord  has  announced 
the  law  of  social  equilibrium  and  stable  pro- 
crress. 

In  society,  as  well  as  in  physical  nature, 
there  are  forces  at  work,  both  of  attraction 
and  of  repulsion.  In  the  movements  of  the 
starry  worlds  stabiHty  is  the  result  of  equi- 
librium between  the  force  that  tends  to  make 
the  whirling  spheres  fly  apart,  and  the  force 
that  tends  to  make  them  fly  together.  In  the 
structure  of  our  living  bodies  stabihty  is  the  re- 
sult of  a  similar  equilibrium  between  the  vital 
force  which  builds  the  molecules  together,  and 
the  chemical  force  which  decomposes  them. 
In  like  manner,  the  stabiHty  of  society  depends 

Preached  in  Lower  Edmonton   Independent   Church, 
Sunday  Evening,  September  9,  1888. 


238       THE  woeld's  balance-wheel.      [xii. 

upon  the  maintenance  of  equilibrium  between 
the  socialistic  force  or  tendency  which  draws 
men  together,  and  the  individualistic  which 
draws  them  apart,  each  in  his  own  line  of 
things.  For  without  individualism,  or  self- 
love,  there  would  be  no  progress :  without 
socialism,  or  neighbourly  love,  there  would  be 
no  stability.  But  these  two  in  equal  activity 
secure  momentum  with  stability  as  the  re- 
sultant of  their  diverging  impulses.  This  is 
the  philosophy  of  the  brief  precept  which  our 
Lord  has  given  as  the  world's  balance-wheel — 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 

There  are  two  points  emphasized  in  this 
Divine  commandment — (1)  The  duty  :  "  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbour,'"  (2)  the  standard  : 
"  as  thyself."  We  must  examine  the  standard 
first,  for  the  sake  of  making  the  duty  more 
intelligble.  We  shall  see  that  there  is  no 
foundation  for  the  common  objection,  that 
while  the  theory  is  fine  the  realisation  is 
impracticable. 

I,  The  commandment  implies  what  it  does 
not  expressly  enjoin,  that  we  must  love  our- 
selves. Because  a  man  is  responsible  to  God 
for  himself  first  of  all,  he  must  first  of  all  take 
care  of  himself,  and  to  do  this  he  must  love 


XII.]         THE    world's   BALA.NCE-WHEEL.  289 

himself.  Without  this  there  can  be  no  in- 
terest, no  effort,  to  better  one's  self ;  and, 
without  this,  no  interest  or  effort  to  better 
one's  neighbour.  Here  we  must  remember 
what  Shakspeare  has  said  : 

Self-love,  my  liege,  is  not  so  vile  a  sin 
As  self-neglecting. 

We  must  seek  what  is  genuinely  good  for 
ourselves,  in  order  to  any  enterprise  or  dis- 
cretion in  seeking  for  our  neighbour  what  is 
genuinely  good  for  him.  The  man  who  offers 
his  neighbour  a  treat  to  intoxicating  drink  at 
a  saloon-bar,  does  not  wisely  love  his  neigh- 
bour, however  generous  toward  him  he  feels, 
because  he  does  not  v^sely  love  himself  in 
such  a  gratification  of  appetite. 

When  our  Lord  says,  '*  Give  to  him  that 
asketh  thee,  and  from  him  that  ivould  horroio 
of  thee  turn  not  thou  away,''  He  certainly 
takes  for  granted  that  His  hearers  have 
common  sense.  Lynx-eyed  critics  have  some- 
times been  bat-eyed  to  this  obvious  considera- 
tion. Give  wisely  is,  of  course,  His  meaning. 
Give  what  is  helpful ;  give  it  in  ways  that  are 
helpful.  Give  not  where  giving  is  hurtful ; 
give  not  in  hurtful  ways,  for  in  such  giving 


240       THE  woeld's  balance-wheel.      [xii. 

there  is  no  real  love.  Give  no  razors  to 
children,  no  pistols  to  fools,  no  money  to  sots 
or  spendthrifts ;  for  such  giving  is  practically- 
hating,  not  loving,  your  neighbour. 

But  it  is  so  widely  imagined  that  self-love 
and  love  to  our  neighbour  are  in  their  nature 
antagonistic,  that  we  must  here  insist  on  the 
contrary  fact.  Love  to  our  neighbour  is  in 
truth  nothing  but  the  social  form  of  rational 
self-love. 

This,  however,  is  by  no  means  to  be  ex- 
plained thus,  that  we  are  to  do  good  to  others 
in  order  that  they  may  do  good  to  us,  to  help 
another  in  his  pinch,  because,  and  so  that,  he 
will  in  turn  help  us  in  our  pinch.  This  is 
caring  everything  for  one's  self,  nothing  for 
the  other.     It  is  a  selfish  trade,  and  no  love. 

The  real  consistency  of  self-love  and  neigh- 
bourly love  will  be  apparent,  as  soon  as  we 
see  what  is  the  self  which  we  are  to  love. 
Here,  then,  we  have  to  insist  on  a  discrimina- 
tion between  the  real,  social  self  which  God 
made,  and  the  fictitious,  isolated  self  which 
is  a  mere  spoiled  fragment  of  what  God  made. 
The  real  and  wide  distinction  between  the 
social  self  and  the  isolated  self  is  well  empha- 
sized in  the  proverb,  "  One  man  is  no  man." 


XII.]       THE  world's  balance-wheel.        241 

It  is  the  social  self  only  which  we  are  to 
love — the  self  which  recognises  one  life  in  all 
lives,  and  all  individual  interests  as  also  com- 
mon interests.  In  the  consciousness  of  the 
social  self  the  good  and  ill  of  one  are  inse- 
parable from  the  good  and  ill  of  another. 
Each  individual  self  is  a  member  of  a  body- 
animated  by  a  common  life,  which  is  helped 
or  hurt  throughout  all  the  members  by  what- 
ever touches  any  member.  In  this  view  of 
the  real  unity  of  our  own  and  others'  interests, 
patriotism,  public  spirit,  neighbourly  feeling, 
Christian  sympathy,  are  not  something  alien 
to  self-love  ;  nay,  they  are  specific  forms  of 
true  self-love — that  is,  of  the  love  of  the  social 
self. 

Thus  there  is  a  clear  parallel  in  moral  law 
to  what  science  has  unfolded  of  physical  law, 
through  the  discovery  that  physical  forces  are 
correlated  as  the  varying  forms  of  one  force, 
and  are  convertible  into  each  other.  When  a 
railway  train  is  stopped,  the  motion  is  ex- 
tinguished as  motion,  but  not  as  force.  Heat 
is  developed  by  the  friction,  and  every  degree 
of  force  that  appeared  in  the  form  of  motion 
reappears  in  the  form  of  heat.  There  is  a 
correlation  of  moral  forces  as  of  physical,  and 

IG 


242       THE  world's  balance-wheel.      [xii. 

moral  forces  are,  like  the  physical,  convertible 
into  each  other.  The  natural  and  healthy  self- 
love  which  prompts  us  to  earn  our  bread  or  to 
guard  our  good  name,  is  still  active,  though  in 
another  form,  whenever  the  healthy  instinct 
of  a  common  humanity,  or  of  Christian  sym- 
pathy, leads  us  to  share  our  loaf  with  the 
hungry  or  to  shield  our  neighbour's  good 
name  from  slanderous  tongues.  In  so  doing 
we  not  only  love  our  neighbour  as  ourself, 
but  we  love  our  true  self  also — our  social  self. 

But  the  opposite  of  this  is  the  isolated,  the 
unsocial  self,  which  looks  on  the  individual 
interest  as  exclusive  and  separate  and  para- 
mount, and  seeks  this  without  regard  to  the 
common  good.  This  isolated  self  we  are  never 
to  love,  simply  because  it  is  a  false  fiction  of 
a  perverted  heart.  We  may  in  fancy,  but  in 
fact  we  never  can,  cut  ourselves  off  from  the 
common  life  of  humanity,  and  from  sharing, 
whether  we  will  or  no,  in  its  common  good 
and  ill.  We  are  not  isolated  beings,  but 
mutually  dependent  and  mutually  helpful 
members  of  one  living  body.  It  is  as  such 
that  we  are  to  love  ourselves.  Then  with 
the  same  love  we  shall  love  our  neighbour 
also. 


XII.]      THE  world's  balance-wheel.        243 

Thus  must  we  clear  away  the  misunder- 
standings which  beset  the  subject  and  per- 
plex the  conscience.  Thus  can  we  see  how 
necessary,  just,  and  wise  is  the  self-love 
which  is  the  standard  of  all  right  love  to  our 
neighbour. 

Such  self-love,  beyond  all  care  for  our  mere 
bread-and-butter  interests,  cares  for  things 
that  make  us  more  lovable  because  more 
loving  ?  A  wise  self-love  cultivates  those  bene- 
volent principles,  kindly  affections,  broad  and 
generous  sympathies,  which  unite  us  with 
God  and  mankind,  and  bring  upon  our  heads 
the  blessings  of  many  whose  burdens  we  have 
lightened  and  whose  cup  we  have  sweetened. 
The  happiest  lives  are  the  most  inclusive  lives, 
which  take  up  other  lives  most  largely  into 
their  own  life  ;  or,  as  is  said  in  common 
phrase,  which  aim  to  make  others  happy. 
The  richest  men  are  those  who  are  rich  in 
loving  hearts  and  loving  deeds.  Every  other 
sort  of  riches  is  perishable,  but  this  is  "  the 
treasure  in  heaven  that  faileth  not.''  No  man 
can  afford  to  postpone  laying  up  this  treasure, 
till  he  has  laid  up  wealth  of  a  perishable  kind. 
He  is  the  greatest  loser  who,  out  of  covetous- 
ness,  or  churlishness,  or  indolence,  denies  him- 


244       THE  world's  balance-wheel.      [xii. 

self  that  Divine  self-development  which  comes 
only  in  ministering  to  the  joys  and  wants 
and  sorrows  of  his  neighbom's.  Those  whom 
he  neglects  may  find  other  sources  of  relief. 
But  he  lost  what  no  other  source  of  self- 
improvement  can  supply  when  he  sealed  up 
the  spring  of  loving-kindness  and  human  sym- 
pathy in  his  own  soul,  and  thereby  severed 
himself  from  God  and  human  kind,  departing, 
as  Jesus  says,  "  to  the  devil  and  his  angels." 
Such  is  the  correlation  of  moral  forces,  that 
love  to  our  neighbour  is  only  the  social  form 
of  a  wise  self-love.  Shakspeare  touches  the 
point  when  he  says : 

This  above  all :  to  thine  ownself  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day. 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 

There  is,  however,  some  untruth  to  self, 
and  some  falseness  to  others,  in  much  that 
is  fancied  to  be  neighbourly  love,  but  is  not 
such  in  fact. 

A  wise  self-love  will  deny  ourselves  what  is 
not  really  good  aild  helpful.  Consequently,  in 
all  true  love  to  our  neighbour  we  shall  deny 
the  same  to  him. 

Much    as   we   are   all    bound   to    help   one 


XII.]      THE  world's  balance-wheel.        245 

another,  we  are  all  equally  bound  to  help 
ourselves.  It  is  a  worthless  character  which 
rejects  the  duty  of  self-help.  It  is  a  very 
unwise  love  to  our  neighbour  which  relieves 
him  of  this.  It  is  far  better  for  a  thought- 
less or  shiftless  and  lazy  man  that  we  should 
allow  inconvenience,  and  even  suffermg,  to 
force  this  duty  on  him,  than  that  he  should 
never  learn  it.  God  Himself  does  this  by 
making  sharp  troubles  whip  us  for  impro- 
vidence. We  are  not  to  interfere  with  God's 
discipline  by  trying  to  make  things  soft  and 
comfortable  for  the  careless  and  the  indolent, 
when  God's  schoolmaster — experience — comes 
to  rap  their  knuckles.  A  great  statesman 
once  said,  that  what  he  most  feared  for  his 
country  was  not  a  day  of  judgment,  but  a  day 
of  no  judgment.  This  is  what  we  ought  most 
to  fear  for  ourselves,  and  consequently  help 
our  neighbours  to  fear  for  themselves.  If 
the  judgment  consequences  of  carelessness 
and  recklessness  were  less  often  set  aside  by 
a  soft-headed  philanthropy,  there  would  in- 
deed be  suffering,  but  in  the  long  run  less 
suffering,  because  more  reform.  Character 
can  never  be  properly  developed  without  ex- 
perience in  the  school  of  suffering.    Some  men 


246        THE  woeld's  balance-wheel.      [xii, 

can  never  learn  some  necessary  lessons  except 
under  whips  that  draw  tears,  or  even  blood. 

The  world  is  called  a  hard  world.  But  so 
far  as  that  word  is  used  in  censure  it  would 
be  quite  as  true  to  reproach  the  world  as  a 
soft  world.  When  the  telegraph  operator 
whose  carelessness  almost  wrecks  a  train, 
instead  of  being  summarily  dismissed,  is 
merely  reprimanded,  and  retained  in  hope 
of  better  doing,  his  repeated  carelessness, 
wrecking  the  express  and  causing  the  loss  of 
two  lives,  makes  us  wish  the  world  had  been 
harder  on  him  before.  What  the  world  needs 
is,  in  fact,  more  hardness  and  more  softness, 
but  each  in  the  proper  place  ; — softer  hearts, 
they  can  be  none  too  soft ;  but  harder  heads, 
to  apply  the  softness  in  the  right  place  and 
proportion. 

Human  benevolence  will  be  more  like  the 
Divine  benevolence,  when  it  holds  men  in  a 
stricter  responsibility  to  the  consequences  of 
conduct.  When  the  pressure  of  the  appre- 
hended consequences  of  misconduct  or  neg- 
ligence begins  to  lighten,  the  safeguards  of 
morality  begin  to  dissolve.  We  are  not  to 
think  first  of  comfort,  but  first  of  character, 
both   for   ourself  and   our  neighbour.     There 


XII.]      THE  world's  balance-wheel.        247 

is  no  way  of  saving  men  whicli  can  dispense 
with  the  strict  enforcement  of  responsibihties. 
As  always  healthful,  though  sometimes  hard, 
we  should  seek  for  nothing  less  for  ourselves, 
and  in  love  to  our  neighbour  nothing  less  for 
him. 

And  yet  we  have  still  one  truth  to  bear  in 
mind,  lest  we  apply  this  wholesome  principle 
to  one  another  without  mercy.  The  Psalmist 
sees  God's  mercy  in  His  rendering  "  to  every 
man  according  to  his  wo7-k."  We  must 
emphasize  the  "  his."  Our  doing  is  often 
only  in  part  our  own,  in  part  another's.  A 
parent's  mistreatment  is  often  part  of  the 
child's  misconduct.  Accordingly,  while  we 
strenuously  insist  on  enforcing  responsibility 
for  consequences,  as  required  by  true  neigh- 
bourly love,  we  must  still  discriminate  in  our 
neighbour's  conduct  the  part  which  is  re- 
sponsibly "  his  work."  The  mischief  wrought 
through  the  drowsiness  of  an  overworked  and 
exhausted  labourer  is  only  in  part,  perhaps 
not  at  all,  his  work.  In  the  case  of  any  culprit, 
the  element  of  wrong  that  is  not  altogether 
his  is  a  fit  subject  for  man's  mercy,  as  it  is  for 
God's. 

So   much  for  the    standard  of  true   neigh- 


248       THE  woeld's  balance-wheel,      [xii. 

bourly  love,  wise  and  strong,  loving  character 
first  and  comfort  next,  with  all  softness  in 
the  heart  and  none  in  the  head,  preferring 
even  suffering  to  demoralisation. 

The  other  thought  which  our  Lord's  precept 
presents  is  the  duty  to  be  fulfilled  according  to 
this  standard. 

II.  "  Tliou  slialt  love  thy  neighbour." 

1.  This  demands  right  feeling,  but  more 
than  feeling.  Sentiment  is  requisite,  but 
sentiment  incarnated  in  conduct.  And  such 
conduct  is  much  more  than  merely  negative, 
more  than  mere  minding  our  own  business 
and  letting  our  neighbour  alone  to  mind  his, 
more  than  mere  declining  to  take  a  share 
in  the  backbiting  and  over-reaching  of  neigh- 
bours that  goes  on  around  us.  He  does  well 
who  is  silent,  when  the  circle  of  talkers  is 
engaged  in  cutting  up  the  follies  and  faults 
of  a  neighbour ;  but  he  does  better,  who  says 
a  good  word  out  of  a  kind  heart  for  the  absent 
subject  of  criticism. 

In  early  times  an  advance  in  morality  was 
made  when  the  strong  man,  who  in  battle 
had  overcome  the  weak  man,  instead  of  slay- 
ing him,  permitted  him  to  live  as  his  slave. 
It    was   a    still    further    advance    when    the 


XII,]       THE  world's  balange-wheel.       249 

stronger  emancipated  the  weaker,  and  left 
him  to  himself  a  free  man,  to  live  as  best  he 
could.  Morality  now  claims  a  fresh  advance 
in  the  treatment  of  the  weak  by  the  strong. 
It  is  mere  negative  benevolence  which  simply 
lets  the  weak  alone,  to  sink  or  swim,  in  the 
merciless  stream  of  industrial  competition  in 
which  multitudes  have  but  the  slenderest 
chance.  The  world's  maxim,  "  Live  and  let 
live,"  must  give  place  to  the  Christian  rule, 
"Live  and  help  live."  The  natural  law  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  must  be  superseded 
by  the  spiritual  law  of  fitting  to  survive. 
As  essential  as  doing  for  self  is  to  self-love, 
so  is  doing  for  our  neighbour  to  neighbourly 
love.  Wishing  well  is  nothing  when  it  stops 
short  of  doing  good.  "  To  him  that  hioiveth 
to  do  good,  and  doeth  it  not,  to  him  it  is  sin." 
We  have  already  seen  that,  in  the  corre- 
lation of  moral  forces,  wise-doing  for  our  neigh- 
bour is  only  another  and  a  special  form  of 
wise-doing  for  our  true  social  self.  Every- 
thing we  do  that  helps  another  realise  a 
better  life  helps  us  realise  a  better  life.  Now 
how  are  we  stirred  up  to  do  for  ourselves  ? 
Evidently,  by  considering  ourselves,  our  situa- 
tion, prospects,  powers,  wants.     This,  then,  is 


250        THE  woeld's  balance-wheel,      [xii. 

the  first  step  of  neighbourly  love  toward  doing 
good  to  other  selves.  "  Consider  one  another, 
so  as  to  be  provoked  (or  stimulated)  to  love 
and  good  works ;" — "  Not  looking  each  of  you 
to  his  oivn  things,  hut  each  of  you  also  to  the 
things  of  others.''' 

The  first  of  truths  in  nature  is  the  last 
of  truths  in  moral  realisation — that  it  is  one 
life  which  throbs  within  us  all,  the  same 
sensitive,  struggling,  yearning,  aspiring  life, 
strung  with  the  same  nerves  of  pleasure  and 
of  pain,  susceptible  to  the  same  hopes  and 
fears,  wrung  by  the  same  wants,  swayed  by 
the  same  passions,  quick  with  the  same 
desires,  responsive  to  the  same  human  sym- 
pathies. Why  do  we  shudder  when  we  see  a 
man  perish,  but  that  our  life  is  in  him  also  ? 
This  sympathetic  recognition  of  a  common 
life,  which  thrills  us  for  a  moment  in  the  pre- 
sence of  a  great  calamity,  is  what  the  world 
hungers  for  in  its  daily  intercourse.  To  cul- 
tivate this  is  the  main  part  of  the  duty  of 
neighbourly  love.  For  this  we  must  take 
more  time  and  thought.  We  must  "  consider 
one  another." 

We  daily  walk  the  streets  engrossed  with 
our   own    affairs,    as   indifferent    to    the    life 


XII.]       THE  world's  balange-wbeel.       251 

around  ns  as  to  the  statues  in  the  square. 
I  would  that  we  might  of  purpose  sometimes 
walk  with  "  a  heart  at  leisure  from  itself"  to 
read  the  story  of  life  that  is  written  upon  the 
faces  that  we  meet — the  weary,  the  hopeless, 
the  hard,  the  dull,  as  well  as  the  bright,  in- 
telligent, and  cheerful  faces,  in  each  of  which 
a  life  the  same  as  ours  utters  its  silent  but  ex- 
pressive speech.  There  is  a  gang  of  labourers, 
dirty  and  unsavoury,  returning  from  a  day  of 
the  lowest  and  hardest  work,  necessary  work, 
of  which  you  share  some  benefit.  Consider 
them,  their  life,  the  homes  they  are  going  to, 
in  noisome  alleys,  in  stilled  closets,  in  damp 
cellars  ;  consider  their  young  children,  the 
dismal  surroundings,  dark  prospects  and  dim 
hopes  of  these.  Without  some  such  week-day 
musings  we  shall  forget  the  Sunday  lesson  : 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 

Yes,  friends,  this  lies  at  the  root  of  our 
duty  :  "  Consider  one  another."  We  do  not 
think,  and  so  we  do  not  feel,  and  by  not 
feeling  fail  in  the  doing,  without  which  is  no 
true  neighbourly  love.  Where  blind  selfish- 
ness sees  no  way,  love — intelligent  and  active 
— finds  a  way,  or  makes  one,  to  express  itself 
in   doing.      Out    of    such    considering   of  our 


252        THE  world's  balance-wheel.       [xii. 

neighbour's  case,  the  great  Sunday  School 
movement  took  its  rise  a  century  ago.  Out 
of  this  considering  sprang  the  beginnings  of 
that  movement  toward  wholesome  dwellings 
for  the  poor,  which  has  as  yet  but  scratched 
the  surface  of  a  gigantic  social  wrong.  Out  of 
this  sprang  the  Factory  Laws  against  unwhole- 
some or  dangerous  workrooms  and  excessive 
work-hours,  and  the  slavery  of  child-workers. 
Out  of  this  must  still  come  many  more  effec- 
tive protests  against  the  cry  of  the  Cain- 
spirit :"  ^m  I  my  brothers  keeper ?''  many 
another  righting  of  unjust  social  conditions, 
many  a  further  opening  of  chances  for  those 
who  at  present  are  selfishly  let  alone,  over- 
weighted and  handicapped  as  they  are,  in  the 
struggle  for  bread  and  a  home. 

The  truth  is,  my  friends,  as  we  often  say, 
**  that  half  the  world  does  not  know  how  the 
other  half  lives."  The  sin  is,  as  we  ought 
oftener  to  feel,  that  it  does  not  care.  There 
is  constant  contention  about  work  and  wages. 
But  were  this  settled  the  contention  still  must 
be,  that  employers  owe  more  than  the  stipu- 
lated sum  in  wages,  and  employes  more  than 
the  stipulated  time  in  work.  The  great  and 
universal  debt  of  each  to  each  is  the  humane 


XII.]       THE  world's  balance-wheel.        253 

goodwill  of  man  to  man  in  the  sympatb}^  of  a 
common  life.  But  this  is  constantly  defaulted. 
The  world's  woe  inevitably  follows,  in  its  bloody 
or  tearful  struggle  to  win  by  force  the  mate- 
rial equivalents  of  love.  Contracts  can  never 
hold  men  together  as  conscience  can.  The 
belting  shps  ;  the  wheels  must  be  geared, 
tooth  into  tooth,  by  the  interlocking  sympathy 
of  man  for  man — looking  on  men  as  more 
than  mere  "  hands  "  on  one  side,  or  mere 
paymasters  on  the  other,  each  putting  him- 
self by  sympathy  in  the  other's  place,  each 
loving  his  neighbour  as  himself.  This  is  God's 
cure  for  the  world's  disease  :  "  Owe  no  man 
anytlimg  save  to  love  one  another'' 

Here,  however,  we  must  limit  our  study  of 
an  exhaustless  subject.  But  if  now  we  are 
disposed  to  begin  at  home  some  effort  toward 
a  better  fulfilment  of  this  fundamental  duty, 
we  may  reflect  that  there  are  near  us,  perhaps, 
some  ignorant  domestics  who  may  be  taught 
to  read  and  write,  and  encouraged  to  lay  up 
their  earnings.  There  are  servants  who  may 
be  bettered  by  books  from  the  family  library, 
or  by  an  occasional  ticket  to  the  art  exhibition 
or  concert.  There  are  young  clerks  and  shop- 
women  who  may  be  put  on  the  road  to  the 


254       THE  world's  balance-wheel.      [xii. 

savings  bank,  the  public  library,  the  instructive 
lecture,  the  church.  There  are  handworkers 
in  the  trades  or  factories  who  may  be  eman- 
cipated by  some  form  of  profit-sharing  from 
certain  degrading  regulations  of  the  trade- 
union,  which  forbid  the  ablest  workman  to 
do  his  best.  Everywhere  is  opportunity  for 
the  open  eye  and  open  heart  of  that  true 
neighbourly  love,  which  opens  doors  for  a  man 
to  better  himself  by  doing  his  best.  Every- 
where is  the  call  to  that  kindness  and  courtesy 
which  to  the  poorest  and  humblest  pays  the 
debt  due  to  humanity.  This  outline,  such  as 
it  is,  each  one  who  thinks  and  feels  can  fill  up 
for  himself. 

The  biographer  of  President  Lincoln  says  : — 
"  When  a  member  of  Congress,  knowing  his 
religious  character,  asked  him  why  he  did 
not  join  some  Church  ?  Mr.  Lincoln  replied, 
'  Because  I  have  found  difficulty,  without 
mental  reservation,  in  giving  my  assent  to 
their  long  and  complicated  confessions  of 
faith.  When  any  Church  will  inscribe  over 
its  altar  the  Saviour's  condensed  statement 
of  law  and  gospel,  "  Tliou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thrj  heart,  loith  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighhoiw  as 


XII.]       THE  woeld's  balance-wheel.       255 

thyself,''  that  Church  will  I  join  with  all  my 
heart.'  " 

To  fulfil  that  good  man's  desire,  and  that  of 
the  living  around  us  who  think  as  he  thought, 
we  need  not  to  emblazon  these  words  upon  this 
wall.  Better  when,  by  a  loving  heart,  they  are 
written  with  the  helping  hand  upon  the  hearts 
around  us  which  hunger  for  such  a  recognition 
that  our  life  is  one  with  theirs.  For  this  each 
one  of  us — the  least  as  well  as  the  greatest — 
has  his  part  to  do,  so  that  in  this  Church  the 
veriest  sceptic  shall  read  a  living  epistle  of 
the  grace  of  God,  which  conscience  bids  him 
join  with  us  to  spread  throughout  the  world. 


LONDON  : 

V,-.    SPEAIGHT  AND   SONS,    PRINTEES, 

FETTEE  LANE. 


^';r 


r 


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